Mass Effect: The Faithful Departed
by SSG Dignam
Summary: A noir crime drama: Shepard, the savior of the galaxy, has been captured by Cerberus and awaits death  at the hands of the Illusive Man.  Only an emotionally scarred Ashley and a nihlistic cop can save him.  Rated T for bloody violence and language.
1. A Universe of Rats

**Disclaimer: Bioware owns Ashley M. Williams, Donnel Udina, David Anderson, Kai Leng, and the cast of ME2. In this case, they also own a little bit of Shepard due to the fact that in this story he is based on the archetype of a paragon rather than my personal interperetation. Dignam, Behring, and the rest of the characters are owned by me. Enjoy!**

Mass Effect: The Faithful Departed

Dignam:

A flash split the night and shattered the calming melody of raindrops splashing against the windows. For the briefest moment, the world was made of light; the tops of looming skyscrapers and cars illuminated like a midsummer day, and then cast down into darkness. The darkness swallowed the light forever.

Welcome to my world, ladies and gentlemen. That's the story of my career in a nutshell: Something incredible and groundbreaking would happen, and then nothing. That's actually the story of the life of every officer in the Special Investigations Unit of the Elysium police. That's a mouthful, I know. Most of us call it the SIU for short. It's said to be a "prestigious honor" and an "important commitment" or perhaps my personal favorite the "chance of a lifetime." Of course once you're inside the unit, you never have time to appreciate any of that candy-ass propaganda garbage.

A job where I get paid to watch some kingpin dine in style at some fancy restaurant with a name I can't pronounce from the back of a surveillance van for twenty hours.

Today was turning into one of those twenty hour workdays real fast. After 16 hours of crime scene reports and official paperwork, and there's still eight inches of paperwork left to go, I know where I'll be at 11:30 at night.

Behind my desk, guaranteed.

Now, I turned back from the soothing downpour outside my office window and back to my Leaning Tower of Paperwork crowding the right half of my desk. Paperwork is actually an outdated term, because now everything is digital, stored in digital files with a harsh orange screen and a grey back holding a dirt mine of data. However, when I really dug my heels into the files, my day got a whole lot more interesting.

The files given to me were those regarding the abduction of Commander Shepard.

Not his supposed death two years ago, but his highly publicized and bloody kidnapping three days ago on the Zakera Ward. It was confirmed by first responders and C-Sec investigators that over two dozen Cerberus Agents ambushed and made off with John-boy near the entrance to the Presidium at 1600 hours. Fourteen Cerberus agents were killed by Shepard's associates, Miranda Lawson and Garrus Vakarian. Miranda was ex Cerberus, so her record was completely nonexistent. Garrus I had known form a prior stint at C-Sec. He had a good heart and fiery ambition, but that also gave him a loose trigger finger and a general lack of professionalism on the job. He had been a close friend, but had recently dropped off of the grid and out of contact with any former colleagues.

I had been given these files because C-Sec investigators put their thick heads together and managed to figure out the Shepard was on Elysium. That was just perfect. Cerberus operated like a military unit and was nearly impossible to track down. Detectives spent years spinning their wheels in the inescapable mud pit of bureaucracy looking for agents Cerberus had planted in the various governments and agencies, to no avail. Now the same task would be asked of the SIU, finding a solution to an impossible problem under public scrutiny.

My thoughts were interrupted by a banging on my door. Oh, great.

"Dignam!" Open up, it's Behring."

Ah, that would be Lieutenant Behring, my stable friend for the past four years. Technically, he was my boss, but I never gave him any reason to pull rank on me.

"What is it?" I shouted back. He had better not need me for something.

"I need you for something." That's just poetic.

I rose from my chair and started toward the door.

"There had better be a goddamn fire in the building," I said as I opened the door.

Behring was standing in the hallway with dark circles around his eyes and a dreary look on his face. He looked exhausted. "Well Dignam, we have a problem. An Alliance Rep is here to speak with you."

"With me?"

"No. She just needs to talk to somebody above the rank of Sergeant, and everyone else is busy, so you're on deck," he said matter-of-factly, leading me into the main office area.

"Thanks. It's good to have friends who care so much," I said dryly as we skirted around a pair of Turian officers and past a jumble of tables and chairs flooded with data pads. The Special Investigations building was always crowded, as officers, detectives, and occasionally Alliance tools came here to tell us to hurry up our investigations or inadvertently slow them down.

We stopped walking. "Listen, Sergeant. This Alliance rep is here about the Shepard case. She's an Operations Chief, so just be nice, and show her some respect and hospitality, and the give her the Blue Wall of Silence."

I knew he was going to say that. He wanted me to bring the Chief's investigation to a standstill. It's one of the oldest tricks in the book for thoroughly pissing off Alliance brass and letting them know that we can handle ourselves. I had no personal problems with the Alliance, but they were constantly sticking their noses in our business, which gets tiring after a while.

Eventually, our walk took us to the guest waiting area, where I could see her sitting uncomfortably in a chair meant for a Turian. If there was any clearer definition of hardass, then I must have missed it.

She was in her late twenties, hair tied firmly in a bun that seemed to tug at the sides of her head. Her skin color was slightly dark with bulging biceps beneath her blue Alliance uniform. She looked anxious, her legs fidgeting. Her face was the look of a woman who had been through the wringer and come out with slightly less of herself than before. If you hadn't already guessed, I had made something of a habit of shamelessly reading people, a useful skill for an investigator.

Behring turned and winked before walking away, disappearing into the melting pot of individuals behind us, with bigger issues on his mind.

I had already made up my mind. If I had the chance to coordinate with the Alliance to find the Savior of the Galaxy, then I would give it my all.

I took a deep breath. Here we go.

Ashley:

I was trying desperately not to fidget in the oddly shaped chair I had been foolish enough to sit in.

I couldn't decide why I was so jumpy. I couldn't sleep on the transport here or the night before that, yet I still had energy. What I didn't have was a place to direct it.

I tried watching the SIU officers bustling here and there, absorbed in casework of one type or another. I couldn't help but compare them to C-Sec due to the nature of their work. C-Sec was an organization I didn't have a lot of respect for, mainly due to all of the regulations and their tendency to just sweep issues under the rug instead of dealing with them. I had decided during my time on the Normandy that I could never be a cop. Too much legal BS and not enough actual action for me to try and make a career out of it. I was a marine anyway; I wasn't born to do anything but serve my race just like my father and his father before him.

Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a pair of human officers speaking in low voices with a sense of urgency about them. Must be contagious around here.

One was a lanky officer in his thirties, unshaven and practically sleeping on his feet. He had a really bad haircut and a Predator handgun strapped to his right thigh, he must be left handed.

The second officer was a few years older than me, with a haircut to match his friend. At first, he appeared to be wearing suspenders, but after a second glance I saw the Camifex sidearm tucked in his shoulder holster under his left arm. He took a brief look at me, sizing me up, then a look toward his friend who was walking away, and finally began to approach me.

I rose from my seat as he extended a hand towards me.

"Staff Sergeant Dignam, pleased to meet you," he nodded courteously as I grasped his hand.

"Operations Chief Ashley Williams," I nodded back. At a second glance, he seemed in his thirties and was in shape, more or less. I stifled back a giggle at picturing all of the officers trying to fit their pot bellies into combat armor.

I had a job to do.

"Can I speak with you? It's about the Shepard incident. The one-"I was cut off abruptly.

"We'll discuss it in my office," he interrupted, leading me past the conglomerate of people in to a small office at the rear of the building.

I silently cursed myself for being impatient. I couldn't just wait until I was in a secure area to spill my guts, could I? Nope. Had to do it right in the middle of the room for all of the free galaxy to hear.

We entered the office. He locked the door behind us, looking down the hallway to make sure nobody had followed us. He was careful, I will give him that.

I leaned against the wall opposite his desk while he sat on the edge of his desk, not having the nerve to take a seat while a woman was standing. He folded his arms and teetered on the edge of his desk, undoubtedly his favorite stance.

I started. "Commander Shepard was… kidnapped," I managed to say the words aloud, still not believing it myself.

"Yeah, I heard. Zakera Ward, right? About three days ago by some Cerberus bad boys on his way to the Presidium. I also heard that he was rumored to be here on Elysium somewhere. Did I miss anything?" he asked. He had a very cynical detached way of speaking, limiting how concerned he was for an issue. It came off as rude, but it was probably the way I would talk if I were in his shoes. That didn't make me feel any better though.

"How did you know? Who gave you that information?" I demanded.

"Captain Sidereaux, Commander of the Special Investigations Unit. Who gave it to you?"

"Councilor Anderson. Since you already seem to know everything, I suppose you don't want the locations of rumored Cerberus hideouts around your city, do you?" His hard boiled cop thing was getting very old very fast.

He sighed, knowing I wouldn't take attitude from him. "Williams, I appreciate you coming here to help, but things don't look very good for Shepard right now. If Shepard gets to the Illusive Man before we can get to him, then I'm afraid we're going to have to make some difficult choices. Those leads you were given on Cerberus…" He trailed off.

"What about them?" I asked.

"They're false. Let me tell you something about retrieving information, Chief. When you go looking for information on the organization that has penetrated the Alliance using sources in the Alliance, you'll hit a dead end."

I could tell that was experience talking. He had spent a long time in the cat and mouse world of organized crime and spies and informants.

"So we start our own investigation, off the books?" I asked.

"Now you've got it, Chief. What we look for are cargo ships that make drop-offs in unpopulated regions of the city. Do you know any shell companies Cerberus owns?" He asked, now interested.

I thought for a moment, trying to remember. Then it came to me. "Anderson told me Cord-Hislop Aerospace is a valuable asset to Cerberus. Let's start there" I suggested, energy and hope flowing through me for the first time in a long while.

"The Cord-Hislop Aerospace? The one that is based here on Elysium?" he asked in disbelief.

"Yes! Let's go," He and I rose from our chairs and started down the hallway.

We met the other lanky officer from before, Lieutenant Behring, and shut ourselves inside a briefing room. Behring operated the interactive hologram in the center of the room, while Dignam and I narrowed down the likely locations where Shepard was being held. Finally, we narrowed it down to a single warehouse on the city limits.

"Want me to call backup, Dignam?" Behring asked.

"No, keep this between the three of us. Would anyone else have access to this information?"

"Not unless they either have a bug in here or can successfully hack our system," he answered.

"Let's roll, Sergeant," I said, concluding the discussion.

Five minutes later, I was suited up and ready to go, armed with my full compliment of weapons and gear.

"Whoa, Chief!" Dignam held his hands up is a gesture of mock surrender. " Remind me not to catch you on a bad day,"

We both managed dark laughs despite ourselves. Dignam and I piled into his unmarked cruiser and drove off into the rainstorm outside. He seemed oddly relaxed, the rain somehow soothing him, despite our near suicide mission ahead. He checked the load of his Avenger Assault Rifle, keeping one eye on the sky ahead.

"So Chief, why did you get this assignment anyway?" he asked.

I chose my answer carefully. "He was my former CO. I felt obliged," I answered quickly, not wanting to reveal what Shepard and I had. What it could've become.

"Mm-hm," he answered with a mocking tone.

"What the hell does Mm-hm mean?" I demanded. Somehow, he had already found out.

"Nothing, Chief. Just commenting..." he let his voice trail off for the extra effect, sensing my defensiveness.

"Look, it wasn't like that,okay?" I tried to be convincing, but it was in vain.

"You are such a bad liar," he laughed, not knowing he hit a nerve.

"I can't lose him again!" I blurted out. That shut him up.

After a long, uncomfortable pause, he said"I'm sorry. I never meant to hurt you. I didn't know how special he is to you."

"Yeah, it's fine. We loved each other a couple of years ago. It just..."

"Whaddya mean you loved him? You do love him. Present tense, Williams."

I managed a smile at his unique way of helping. "Thanks, Dignam." I realized what he said was true. I was still in love with him, I had just been denying it for so long that I couldn't remember what it felt like. "So what's your story?"

"Nothing special. I've been a cop ever since I was eighteen, and now I have a job in the SIU that keeps me busy."

"Must be an honor," I commented.

He started laughing."You have no idea."

Suddenly, I found myself squinting and leaning out the window. I couldn't put my finger on it, but something had caught my eye. Something was out of place.

"No sights this part of town," he interrupted my thoughts.

I ignored him, keeping my eyes peeled. Finally, I saw it. The one thing out of place.

"Dignam, does Cord-Hislop have any other warehouses this part of town?" I asked quickly. When he said no, I knew I had the right to be suspicious. "There's an armored truck with the company logo on the side. At the intersection ahead." I pointed frantically, my instincts kicking in. This changed the mission. Our plan was now totally obselete.

"You're call Williams. If we let this go, and they walk, then we might never see Shepard alive again."

I had already made up my mind." Let's go."

Shepard:

The world was blood red. Inside the container, it was dark, yet tinted red.

My hands were tied firmly behind my back, not that the Cerberus agents needed the knots. My battered body had stopped cooperating a long time ago. I was propped up in a small plastic seat, in the middle of an empty room. We were moving, somehow the room I was in was moving steadily forward. The motion combined with the blood I had lost made me want to throw up, but I could hold it back. That was the only thing I still had control over. The last couple of days/weeks/months(I was unable to tell how much tine had passed) were a complete blur.

"Hang tight, soldier man," a voice said mockingly from a few feet away. Petrenko. That was his name. He was of Ukranian heritage with a throaty accent to match. He was also a former Spetznaz operative for a Russian-based organization on earth before it had been disbanded. The tattoo on his bicep proved my assumption.

"You know, if my friends weren't here," he said in a Russian monotone, loosely angling a thumb over his shoulder, stepping closer." I would spill your guts out like they were jello!" he shouted, throwing a roundhouse kick into my side.

I felt the foot slam into my kidney. I probably would have tasted blood if I had not been already doing so for the past 24 hours. It ached, but somehow I was numb to it.

"That was a pretty weak kick, Petrenko," commented another voice. I didn't have to see to know who it was. The punk's name was Barrigan; a sarcastic, passively-ruthless operative in his twenties. He wore a black shoulder holster with a Predator handgun strapped in. He seemed like the type who could kill an alien and then laugh about it, based on his detached, smug attitude.

The only other man in the room was Kai Leng. He was the best trained individual I had ever met. Sporting skills with knives, guns, and especialy his bare hands, his speed and strength could easily give Thane Krios a run for his money. I knew his job was to keep me restrained and prevent me from trying any ill concieved escape attempts, or hold off would be attackers. So far, his skills had been put to waste. The only action he participated in was in my abduction, which was a blur in my memory, one of the many blind spots I had since being rebuilt by Cerberus. I never told anybody, but Miranda and Wilson couldn't bring all of the memories back, despite what they believed after all of the extensive work. Had cerberus gotten Miranda too?

I could only guess about what was happening in the world outside of my personal hell.

"Enough," Kai Leng spoke in a quiet, yet assertive voice."We are almost there."

Suddenly, the whole world rocked with a thunderous BOOM. A third of the room was torn open violently, like some massive creature had taken a bite out of it. Rain poured in from outside, a constant stream soaking all of us. The cold water felt so good on my body, soaking my wounds and washing away the blood at the same time.

Kai Leng didn't hesitate, lunging into the nearest corner of the room and pressed his hands against the walls, hanging on for dear life.

The rest of us weren't so lucky.

Barrigan tumbled into the other side of the container, out of view.

Petrenko barreled into me, knocking both of us to the floor. Tidal waves of pain surged through my nervous system, blotting out the world in a flood of red.

I had to get out of this chair. Somehow, I had to move now or not at all. The knots on my hands were tight and done by experienced hands, but eighteen hours of silently working them paid off. That combined with the blood dripping down my arms acting as a lubricant, giving me wiggle room. I tugged and pulled for all I was worth, and suddenly my hands were free.

When I tried to raise them, the white hot pain brought them down again.

It hurt like hell, but my hands were free.

Kai Leng grabbed his pistol in a flash, drawing a bead on me. But he held his fire. He still wasn't authorized to kill me, not even now.

Suddenly, a pair of boots flew through the window, smashing violently into Kai's shull, knocking him backward and into the intact wall of the container, withan equally sickening crack. He didn't get up.

A figure materialized in the opening, rifle drawn. I didn't believe it.

Ash was here! How? I didn't believe it, but here she was, charging into the container to save me!

Petrenko drew his service knife from his belt as he rose onto his feet. he never carried a gun around me, as the risk of me killing him with it was too high. But he had his ten inch service knife, and started toward Ash, who was still facing the fallen Kai Leng.

I pushed myself harder than I had in my entire life. I had to get up. Had to do something. In a cry of defiance, I shouted "Not my Ash!"

Suddenly, I was up and running, trying to ignore the pain of being beat on for days.

Petrenko turned to face me. When he did, I threw a wild left hook that connected with his jaw with a satisfying crunch. Finally, I had hurt him. After hurting people for his entire life, it was about time someone hurt him back.

He staggered backward directly toward Ash, his knife tumbling into oblivion. Ash sidestepped and grabbed Petrenko by the collar and hurled him out of the opening and into the maelstrom.

That's my Ash. Another man appeared behind Ash, holding an Assault Rifle and was wearing what looked like suspenders.

For the first time in my life, I didn't ask questions, I just ran toward my Ash and her friend.

Suddenly the man screamed,"Barrigan! "How'd he know who Barrigan was?

I turned around mis-stride to see Barrigan recovering and drawing his pistol from under his armpit. He fired two shots, shattering the man's rifle.

That didn't stop him from charging Barrigan, beating aside his pistol with one arm and landing a punch to his temple with the other.

Barrigan threw a sharp elbow that connected with the man's forehead as he desperately tried to get a shot off. This stunned him briefly, allowing Barrigan to fire a round into his kinetic barrier.

The man recovered and grabbed the straps of Barrigan's holster and shoved him to the floor, leaving him struggling to fire his weapon

"Come on Dignam!" Ash shouted.

Dignam. That was his name. He stopped fighting and ran over to us.

Suddenly, Ash grabbed me and pulled me out of the opening and into the rain. For a moment we were floating, totaly weightless in zero g.

Then we crashed down into the seat of a car riding alongside the transport.

Dignam hit right after us. Immediately, he grabbed the wheel and yanked hard to the right, breaking our paralel course with the transport.

Kai Leng had recovered and was returning fire, a wild look in his eye. After a minute of darting through traffic and weaving dangerously between lanes, the shots became less frequent as out car mixed in with the other million nameless and indistinguishable vehicles out that night. I hung on for dear life. Times like these made me realize just how serious my fear of reckless driving was. I was fine if Joker was at the helm of the Normandy of I was driving with Liara on Illium, trying to catch a spectre. But I don't like putting my life in the hands of someone I don't know.

It was pouring outside on whatever planet we were on. Ash had closed the door but we were still soaked to the bone.

Dignam was shaking, still on his adrenaline rush. I saw what I thought was suspenders was actually a shoulder holster with his sidearm still inside. I saw the badge around his belt. It read, Elysium Police SIU. Whatever the hell that was, I'm glad it had sent a man to help rescue me.

He set the car down at an empty landing pad and jumped out, falling to his knees in the rain. He looked defeated for some reason.

I turned to Ash, who hadn't taken her eyes off of me the entire time. She was staring at me with a look of... hope. Hope that she would see me again. Hope that Horizon wasn't really the end for us.

Hope that someday we could love each other again.

I tried to think of something to say, something to make it right. I had run over my apology a hundred times, but now even those words would be in vain. So I said the only thing I could think of.

"I'm sorry."

As soon as the words came out, Ash lunged forward and caught me in an embrace. Her warmth was pulsating next to me for the first time in over two years, filling me with a serene sense of peace. Whenever I was with my Ash, nothing else mattered. I had been captured by Cerberus and was incredibly beaten up. A man had died today.

But it was alright.

"It's okay," Ash whispered into my ear, pulling me closer. I was in tears over Ash, having spent so long without her advice or comforting presence. I think she was crying too. Even now, after barely letting herself shed a tear on Horizon, she had turned on the waterworks for the real reunion on some landing pad on a planet neither of us had been to. I wasn't letting her go, I would never let her go ever again for as long as I lived.

We left our rapture after untangling ourselves from each other.

"How did you find me?" I asked.

"Help from a friend," she said with a sly smile. I loved her smile, when she chose to let me see it.

We both turned to see Dignam slowly making his way to us, drenched. We saw the hollow look on his face, a sense of dread about him.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"Barrigan. He's back. In my lifetime he's back."

After our emotional reunion, I leaned that Sergeant Dignam worked for the Elysium police, Special Investigations Unit. He had agreed to help Ash rescue my sorry ass as a favor to the Alliance. I also learned that he had a smug attitude, a slight detachment from whatever he was trying to deal with. I had seen people with far worse attitudes, so i took no offense to it.

We rode to a half empty hotel on the south side of the city, where Cerberus wouldn't track us. Ash had said it wouldn't draw too much attention if we decided to stay the night.

The door opened to our room with a soft whine. As soon as we were in, I laid down on the overstuffed sofa, still in pain. Ash was there to save the day once again, providing some medigel for my wounds and bandages to begin the healing process. I was enjoying my assistance from Ash more than I should have, but I don't think she had a problem with that.

As soon as I could sit up, I got into the extranet terminal in the main seating area. I typed in the code for the Normandy's private channel and prayed for a response. Dignam had already contacted his captain and Ash had done the same with Anderson, all involved were en route.

Someone on the Normandy answered, a green light indicating that the comm channel was open. Ash leaned in next to me, watching intently. Dignam stood behind us, arms folded. Funny, some of his mannorisms were like Barrigan's; with his cynical attitude and habitually standing in the background instead of at the forefront. I kept this stored in my brain for later use.

"Hello?" a voice spoke into the other end of the line. It was shy and reserved, kind of like a child wondering if they should be answering the phone when their parents weren't home.

It was Kelly Chambers.

"Kelly, this is Shepard," I replied.

"Shepard! Are you okay? Where are you? Are you hurt? Have you-" Her questions came at me a million miles an hour, not giving me a chance to answer.

"Kelly!" I interrupted her flood of questions in a calming voice."I'll be okay, could you put me on screen in the comm room and notify the crew?"

"I'm on it!" she practically shouted into the receiver and ran away, spreading the news like it it was Christmas morning.

"You guys certainly have enough coffee on your ship, don't you?" Ashley commented. Dignam just laughed.

"Shepard, I'm putting you up on screen now," Chambers updated me. I could see her moving around the camera in the comm room as my faithful crew slowly gathered from behind her.

Shouts of joy were heard from the cheap speakers as crew members waved to the camera. It was nice to see that they had made it out and were okay as far as I could tell. It was a good thing nobody else had been captured instead of me, because I would burn Elysium to the ground trying to smoke Cerberus out if they had.

"Who are you?" Dignam asked from behind us. We cleared so that Chambers could see him.

I just then realized how bad of an idea it would be for Dignam to meet the crew. Oh shit.

"I'm Yeoman Kelly Chambers. I serve as Shepard's yeoman as well as a psychologist aboard the Normandy," she answered.

"Really? So every so often one of Shepard's badasses gets to come to you and cry about their feelings after having to, ahem, discharge their weapon in the line of duty, right?" he said with a wicked grin. He had no idea who he was talking to.

"Actually, that's my job," is what I wanted to say, but I held my tongue.

I heard a few laughs in the background mixed in with some cursing from Jack and Grunt, and a brief greeting from Garrus.

"Hey, Shepard, who's with you?" I heard Miranda ask from the background.

"This is Ops Chief Ashley Williams, she was the Alliance rep on Horizon." I pulled a reluctant Ashley closer to the camera. I couldn't believe it, but Ash was actually nervous. Ha! Now that was a sight I didn't see every day! Her cheeks were even red!

"Hey, Williams!" Garrus, Tali, and Joker waved at their old comrade.

"Hiya fellas," Ashley waved back, then retreated.

"Who else is there?" Tali asked quizzicaly.

"Guys, this is Sergeant Dignam. He's with the Elysium police, he and Ash helped rescue me from Cerberus." He nodded, and some more curses were mumbled into the reciever.

After that, I explained the current situation to my crew, from the presence of Kai Leng and Barrigan to the method of extraction used to get me out.

"Wait," Ash interrupted me, which was odd for her."You two have Cerberus emblems on your uniforms," she pointed to Jacob and Miranda. She reached to kill the connection, but I stopped her.

"Ex-Cerberus actually, Chief," Jacob explained.

"So how dangerous is Kai Leng?" I asked Miranda.

"Extremely. I would recommend running when you see him. He's the best operative Cerberus has to offer, specializing in wet work. The only reason he wasn't put on the team is so the Illusive Man could have a way to control you if you disobeyed his orders, whcih proved to be quite effective."

"We get the picture," Ashley said. "So who's this Barrigan character?"

Dignam spoke up in the background. "He was a cop once upon a life. He went rogue after believing the police couldn't stop all of the corruption in the galaxy. He gunned down two officers before fleeing the Special Investigations Unit. It was believed that he entered a cryo stasis somewhere in the Traverse in an attempt to outlive his arrest warrant. Yet, I saw him here, tonight."

"Did you know him well?" Jacob asked.

"Yes. I am one of the few who remembers him as Sergeant Barrigan."

"Anyway," I took charge of the conversation, a force of habit. "We are going to hold out here tonight and meet with Anderson and Udina when they arrive. We'll find some way to get me off world without Cerberus finding out."

"Contact us when you're off of Elysium," Miranda told us.

I nodded. "I'll talk to you then. Shepard out." With that the conversation was over. My reunion would have to wait, Anderson and Udina had arrived.

Ashley opened the door for them, greeting Anderson and ignoring Udina respectively. Udina must have still been the political tool that he was two years ago. I didn't know what to think about Anderson. He was a good officer, an impossibly honest politician, yet he still didn't trust me completely. I didn't take that too hard; I was used to people not trusting me on a regular basis. I still didn't know about Dignam. He had rescued me, but I've seen people do a lot more deceiving than that to get a whole lot less in return. That and the fact that he kept reminding me of Barrigan for some reason.

After them, a weary looking Lietenant Behring and Captain Sidereaux, a salarian, arrived with other officers to secure the building.

"Shepard, it's good to have you back...again," Anderson said in his normal deep, booming voice. Behring almost laughed from his seat next to Ash and I on the sofa, but squelched the idea before Ashley did the same to his head.

Udina started,"Shepard, it's good to see you up and walking again. Do you need a doctor? Did Cerberus give you any injections of any kind?"

I couldn't believe Udina cared, not that I was going to ask any questions about it. "No,sir. I've been given medigel by Ops Chief Williams. I'll make it...And I appreciate you sending her, sir. Without them rescuing me, I would've never been seen again," I said, realizing how true my words were. I turned to Ashley. "Thank you,Chief."

She gave me one of those meaningful looks that I love. "No problem, Skipper."

"Hallmark moment," Behring mumbled. Sidereaux and Dignam chuckled, ruining our "Hallmark Moment", to our distaste.

Sidereaux straightened up, clearing his throat. "Alright, we know Cerberus is after Shepard and we know that the operative Kai Leng and former officer Barrigan are involved. The question is: How do we get Shepard off world without attracting Cerberus to the LZ?" He spoke like a Salarian, yet was considerably slower and easier to understand than most. Well, maybe not. Maybe I had just been talking with Mordin too much.

"That's why you called my office," Anderson filled in. "The SIU can't guarantee a safe transport for Shepard anywhere, let alone to an LZ that my men are defending."

"The SIU is compromised, but we intend to keep this off of the books," Dignam explained.

"Oh yeah, that'll help," Udina mumbled sarcastically. Anderson nodded in agreement.

"Compromised?" I wondered aloud.

"Yes. We think that there may at least one rat in the police, but we don't know who he works for," Dignam explained grudgingly. I could tell announcing that he worked for a corrupt law enforcement office took some pride away from him. No wonder things were so hush-hush around here.

"So the fact that Ashley and Dignam found Shepard as he was being taken away from a Cerberus hideout is just a pure coincidence?" Anderson said facetiously, obviously fed up with the officers trying to cover up their own issues within the unit. See, that was Anderson's only problem. He was too honest, sometimes brutally so.

Sidereaux stood up, offended."Actually, I had men ready to handle the investigation when your office got involved-"

"My office? You think that my office is the one that is compromising this operation?" Both Anderson and Sidereaux took steps toward each other.

Ash stood up, getting in between the Sidereaux and Anderson before I could.

"Both of you! For Christ's sake, we don't have to deal with the corruption in either of your offices now. All we need to do is keep the operation small and between us. Look, we don't need any heavy support for this mission, just a handful of officers and marines to secure transport and lock down an LZ outside the city limits and we can get him safely off world before Cerberus will have time to mobilize."

Her sudden tactical appraisal blanketed the room is silence.

I spoke up. "She's right. As long as we keep this small, then the Cerberus teams won't have to get organized. And I could use someone of Ash's caliber on the Normandy, so she and I can depart."

Now everyone was looking at me, to my dismay. I had hoped to say that in the least attention-grabbing way possible, but that plan was officially blown out of the water.

Anderson broke the silence. "Yes, Chief Williams can be our liason on the Normandy, provided she wants the assignment."

"Yes," Ashley blurted before I could wonder if Horizon was really the end for our tome together.

Anderson clapped his hands."It's settled then. We'll escort Ashley and Shepard to an LZ outside the city and then fly them off world so that Shepard can continue his mission on the Normandy."

"The SIU can provide safe transport to the landing zone alongside any marines you have involved-"

"That won't be necessary Captain. You're concern is appreciated, but you said it yourself. Your unit is compromised." Anderson seemed stuck on the fact that the SIU would get us killed. We also appreciate the concern, but I think we can trust Sidereaux and Behring's men to get us there alive.

Sidereaux and Dignam were reaching a breaking point, having their dignity continually taken away every time Anderson spoke.

"No offence grandpa, but I think that Behring and I can provide tactical support without getting word out," Dignam pointed out.

"Fine," Anderson compromised. "But if anything happens to those two, then I'm holding your office responsible," he told Sidereaux. Sidereaux nodded, having heard that threat before.

After our meeting, we all dispersed. Anderson and Udina departed, leaving a handful of marines spread throughout the building. The Behring and Sidereaux left to get some sleep, and Dignam stayed in the apartment next to ours.

After the last officer was gone, Ash and I finally got some alone time.

Ashley:

Thank god they left! That's all I was thinking as I playfully pushed Shepard down onto the bed before falling down next to him.

We both giggled like a college couple for several minutes, lost in each others company.

"I thought we'd get to watch a fight back there," I laughed.

"Anderson's a tough old dog, I'll bet that he would take Sidereaux down in a flash."

"Maybe," I contradicted him for the sake of contradicting him, just to get him going.

"Maybe?" Shepard asked. "I think I'm right about that."

"Oh, I don't think Anderson's that fast anymore. I also heard that he punched Udina in the gut a while back," I told him.

"Really? That wouldn't suprise me. If I were Anderson, I would level that tool in a second," Shepard joked. It was funny because I knew he wouldn't do it in a million years. Shepard is such a nice guy, he wouldn't lay a hand on anybody he knew... Well that's what he was like last time I saw him.

"So, how have you and your new friends been doing since I left?" I asked it casually, but was desperate for an answer. It had been over two years, and I didn't even know what Shepard had been up to.

"Better. They were all at the end of their own personal ropes when I found them, or at least most of them. Tali and Garrus were glad to see me. Joker had already signed up for Cerberus, so he was about as pumped as he can be. The rest you haven't met yet. They're strong individuals, mentally and physically. They all had their own sets of troubles, but have managed to work through them with some help."

He stopped, apologising for rambling, but I told him to keep going. I liked the way he talked. He sounded like a preacher or an old war vet halfway through his memoirs with a case of writer's block, eager to spill his thoughts out. He wasn't like most other loser boyfriends I've had, considering my career didn't intimidate him and he wanted to do more than just get into my shorts. Actually, he wasn't like any other man I had met. He was his own breed all together, with a sense of duty and motivation to do the right thing no matter what setting him apart from, or perhaps above, others.

Then it was my turn.

I was reserved at first, but I realized I could trust Shepard. I felt like a normal person for the first time in a long while, staying up later than I should be and talking about things I had been forbidden to speak of. For the past couple of months, the only contact I had with the outside world was a video chat with Lynn and Abbey, and a manditory leave ordered by Anderson. This was a refreshing change of pace, despite the circumstances.

Sometime, I started up my personal music player, and began showing Shepard what I had. We had slightly different music tastes; I liked the intense music that was playing in clubs, the real down to earth tunes that didn't involve a lot of voice editing, mixed in with some updated versions of boring classics. Shepard liked music that was written by people who have been dead for a hundred years. We found a common ground somewhere along the line.

Then he found the song "Comfortably Numb" by Rodger Walters and Dar Williams.(no relation) I liked that, it was a little slow for me, but it was perfect for the moment. He turned it on and we held each other, staring off into space wondering what tomarrow might bring. The only thing that mattered was that we had each other for one more night, even though it might be our last night together.

We were in way over our heads, but it was alright.

Nine in the morning had never come so soon.

It hit me about as hard as the banging on the door and Dignam telling Shepard and I, now called "Joanie and Chachi", to get up.

I moaned and began to untangle myself from the sheets and Shepard's arms and slowly rise out of bed. Shepard was still out like a light, though.

"Come on, Skipper. We've got a flight to catch, " I pulled the pillow out from under his head, to his suprise, and convinced him to get his tail out of bed.

We picked up the pace, dressing ourselves and grabbing our weapons on the way out. Shepard and I both donned cargo pants and loose t-shirts. Mine was dark blue with the Alliance logo stecniled across the back. Shepard wore a faded workout tee that had served me for many years. It was clearly a womean's shirt, but he didn't complain.

As we stepped out, two human marines saluted me. On instinct I saluted them back, even though I had no idea who they were.

Behind them stood Behring, looking well rested for the first time in weeks. Dignam leaned up against the opposite wall as he watched down the hallway, his hand already on his hand canon, expecting trouble. Accompanying them were two more asari officers cradling assault rifles, with black and blue EPSO (Elysium Police Special Operations, I think) combat armor, looking alert.

"Expecting trouble?" I asked the question in a grave tone, checking the load on my Predator just in case.

"We don't know yet. But the transport Anderson was supposed to send should have been here about three minutes ago," Behring siad in an exasperated tone.

"Have any other officers in the building seen anything?," Shepard asked hurriedly.

"I've been doing radio checks about every fifteen seconds, " Dignam told me. I could tell from the look on his face that he wasn't even kidding.

I swore under my breath. I hated times like this; when we didn't know if a mission was compromised or not. Times like this all of your training and your entire life can come down to a judgement call, and usually that call is an educated guess, failure or success only a random-ass judgement call away.

Dignam turned away to do a radio check, freezing after a couple seconds of static. Only static. No chatter, just nothing.

"Oh shit, " I was the first to notice. By the time I had said aloud what everyone else was thinking, we all had our guns out and were covering each end of the hallway.

"We have to move. Is there an exit?" Shepard asked, trying to stay calm.

"Not one that they don't have covered," Dignam replied. "Cerberus agents seal off the exits first, then shut down the elevators, then start working their way up."

I didn't have time to ask how he knew all of that, but I had time to take it into serious consideration.

"Okay, that makes them hard to escape, but easy to predict. What's it gonna be, Skipper?" I asked. The decision rested on Shepard, as most usually did.

He thought for a second, weighing out all of the options before realizing what needed doing. Everyone actually knew what he was going to say, as there was no alternative.

"We'll have to hit them head on. They will be spread thin across all of the stairwells and elevators, so it would be best if we all punched through one way and escaped before they could coordinate a counter attack. It's ugly, but it's all we've got."

All of us nodded. It was time to take the fight to them.

Kai Leng:

The officer hit the floor with a thud, with a crushed windpipe and a dislocated shoulder.

Not bad, Kai Leng thought. Not bad at all.

He rounded the corner, combat knife up his shirt sleeve. Another officer turned around in suprise, but dismissed the man as another bystander, as he didn't have a gun. He was human. Six two. A hundred and eighty pounds. Mid twenties. Young in his career, not wanting to waste it guarding some run down hotel. Cops were easy like that. You could guess at how they would handle a situation by just watching them in the moments leading up to it, their physical features and facial expressions telling all.

Reading people in the few second before he killed them was something Kai Leng took pride in. He had _truely_ beaten them after having known them in a way that even their loved ones couldn't dream of before killing them in ways that they couldn't imagine.

Kai Leng moved swiftly, darting towards the young officer.

The man's eyes went wide in shock before angling his rifle for a clean shot.

As he was about to fire, Kai Leng jumped and kicked off of the adjacent wall, giving him the momentum of a krogan as he slammed a closed fist into the officer's nose in mid air, smashing the cartalidge into a pulp.

The bloodied young man reeled, dropping his rifle. Now was his chance.

Kai Leng spun around, drawing the knife and ramming it into the man's neck at an upward angle in one motion, the blade plunging into his brain, stopping his pain cold. The speed of this motion was matched only by the speed of which Kai Leng slipped the knife back into his shirt sleeve. Had there been any witnesses, they wouldn't have even seen it.

He let the pathetic excuse of a cop slump to the floor, dead.

That was the last one. There had been seven on the other floors, and they were all dead.

Kai Leng rejoined Barrigan and the rest of his eight man team, dispersing them to different exits, where they would box in Shepard and the others. He had one condition, though.

He was to be the one to kill Ashley Williams.

**Thanks for reading all! Please post reviews and give me feedback on the story, as this will be a great help as I continue the adventure.**


	2. Play the Game

**Author's Note: Bioware owns everything still, including all of the weapons listed here, which there are quite more of this time around I might add.**

**On that note, this chapter is more intense in terms of language and violence, so consider yourselves warned.**

**Enjoy!**

Mass Effect: The Faithful Departed

Ashley:

We moved silently down the hall, all of us were aware of the consequence of doing otherwise.

The door to the stairs was directly ahead. My heart was doing a drum cadence in my chest, as fast as can be.

We took up positions on either sides of the door, covering the entrance. When I say positions, I don't mean a doorway or bansiter. There wasn't a single object to take cover behind besides the person in front of us. No doubt we would get mowed down if their team came through the door right now.

I pressed my ear against the wall, listening intently for the sound of footsteps. For the longest minute of my life, nobody moved. Nobody breathed. We just listened.

Then I heard footsteps. Not on the other side of the wall, but at the opposite side of the hallway. Oh shit.

Dignam was the farthest back, so he was the first to turn around to face the other way.

When he did, he saw Barrigan standing in the open, a rifle clutched in his hand and a look of shock on his face.

They both held their fire though. I couldn't get a shot without hitting Dignam, so we all just stood there, dumbfounded.

The two hesitated, as if in a trance. Then Dignam and Barrigan opened fire in the same moment, Dignam's hand canon thundered while Barrigan's rifle sprayed a stream of slugs in our direction.

Barrigan dived around the corner, narrowly avoiding Dignam's fire.

Barrigan's fire missed our crowd completely, somehow.

"Move!" Shepard shouted, barreling through the doorway that we were crowded around.

The sliding door came off its hinges as Shepard and I crashed into it, followed by the others.

We were inside a stairwell, obviously, with steps directly in front of us.

Also in front of us were three Cerberus agents, clad in body armor, running up the stairs.

I raised my pistol and pumped the trigger, aiming for the pointman's rifle, which was unprotected by his kinetic barriers.

The rifle burst into a million pieces as the core overloaded, searing his hands. The rest of my magazine was unloaded into his barriers, fizzling them out.

I ran and tackled him, the two of us tumbling down the stairs in a tangle of limbs until we hit the doorway to the next level with a bone jarring thud. By some miracle, I had landed on top of him and used him to cushion my fall. He wasn't so lucky, because he didn't get up. I heard gunfire above and saw a spray of blue and red to match.

I looked up to see Shepard, Dignam, Behring, and one asari officer were stumbling toward me followed by a marine. The other two lay dead.

Someone grabbed me by the collar and hauled me to my feet, pulling me down the next set of stairs at the same time. It was Shepard.

I ejected the thermal clip out of my gun as we half ran, half fell to the first floor. If anyone stumbled and fell, they wouldn't be getting up.

As we made it to the first floor doorway into the lobby, a figure was hanging over the railing of our previous floor wielding a rifle. Barrigan.

Barrigan fired two short bursts, dropping the asari and turning her head into a bloody pulp.

We kept running out into the lobby, making for the exit. At the opposite end was a reception desk with a miniature waterfall behind it, to soothe people. Ironic right?

Three more Cerberus agents rounded the corner of the other stairwell, rifles drawn.

This time Dignam didn't hesitate, firing four rounds from his powerful sidearm.

Three struck the agent's neck, dropping his kinetic barrier. The fourth hit him between the eyes, splitting his head open.

The rest of us opened fire with everything we had, and so did they.

I fired my pistol incessantly, barely aiming at this range as we continued running and gunning.

One of the agents went down in a heap on the now bloodied carpet, apparently dead.

The marine that was with us stumbled and fell behind. When I looked, I saw that his leg had been torn apart be gunfire.

The other agent stopped firing to reload, turning his attention away from the downed marine.

The marine threw his rifle to the ground and drew his handgun from his thigh, still firing at the agent. As he did so, he fell backwards, pushing us out the door, using himself as a shield. I tried to pull him away from the door, but he refused to budge, still shooting.

Behring grabbed me, pulling me away from the chaos and back into the rain outside. We stumbled down the front stairs to the building and ran into the crowded sidewalk outside.

Through the downpour and the crowd, I could barely see Shepard and the others as I pushed and shoved my way past terrified pedestrians, looking for a transport.

The sky was dark and uninviting, angry rain clouds emptying down on us their massive cargo. The street outside was buzzing with activity, or had been before the shooting started. Now everyone was panicking, trying desperately to get closer to or as far away as they could from the chaos inside the hotel complex, which was swiss cheese by now from all of the shooting and dying. Jumpy Salarians, a family of volus, and dozens more all ran with us in our haste to escape the fracas inside.

More gunshots followed us into the rain. Jesus Christ, they were firing into the crowd!

Finally, the shooting stopped. The noise of screaming infants and terrified bystanders was still deafening though. If anything, more people were running now than the minute before. I still couldn't get a bearing on anything, there were too many people running in too many directions at once.

Eventually, I spotted an abandoned vehicle and we piled in, bruised and soaked to the bone. We drove off in a hurried pace, leaving the dreadful place and the departed inside of it behind.

Dignam:

I couldn't stop shaking.

The car took off deeper into the thunderstorm, cruising above the city streets and the madness that was once a quiet neighborhood on Elysium. Now it would never be the same again.

I leaned back in my seat next to Shepard, trying to slow my heart rate down before it burst out of my chest. I couldn't believe it.

Barrigan was there again! It was pure chance that I had found him during the rescue, but now he was after Williams and Shepard, and since I wasn't going to leave their side, that meant we would see each other again.

You just couldn't leave me alone, could your Barrigan? No, you made me come find you and try to kill you.

I had hesitated this time. I didn't want to kill him, I couldn't bring myself to do it, no matter how much I tried to convince myself that he was the real bad guy. I could never kill him, and he couldn't kill me either. Maybe we would do this forever; I would pursue him in the name of the Police, and he would hunt me in the name of Cerberus, yet after all of our shooting and struggling, we wouldn't bring ourselves to kill each other after all.

Behring was even more shaken up than I was for some reason, pale white and face set in a permanent look of shock that seemed to be fixed in stone, as he was that way all our drive to the station.

That's right, we were going to the one place on Elysium that was still safe, inside the SIU itself. Not even Cerberus would have the balls to attack us there. Not on our turf.

That was the thing I hated the most about Cerberus; They are such cowards when fighting. Sure, they're not afraid to attack a wealthy businessman or abduct a helpless child, but they always avoided contact with people who could fight as well as they could, or even marginally threaten their mission. Now I wasn't so sure. They had killed a dozen armed people today, nine of them cops.

No matter what I thought about Cerberus, one thing was for sure. There would be hell to pay for what happened here.

I still don't know about my former partner and brother in arms Barrigan, but everyone else I saw working for Cerberus was going to die, no matter what.

I had known three of the officers that had died personally. Sanderson, a nice guy with a family of three kids and a spouse. Did Cerberus care about them? Nope. Reid and his parents who he was supporting in a retirement home, struggling to get buy with a trooper's salary? Or how about Bravina, an asari fresh out of the academy with four sisters?

I could still remember an interrogation with a Cerberus agent after he had put two bullets into the back of a turian bureaucrat's head. I remembered the look of defiance and anger on his face as if it were yesterday. I could still remember what he said.

"_I would never try kill someone if I thought that they could kill me._"

The epitamy of cowardice right there. I would never become a man like that.

As we neared our destination, I felt a little more secure, holstering the pistol I had been clutching with white knuckles for the past thirty minutes.

We entered the parking garage attached to the SIU, cruising into the dimly lit hangar a thousand feet above the ground. See, when I say that the garage is attached to the building, I mean it is literally part of the building. A Cerberus agent would have to go through the entire SIU just to get there, and none I knew had the guts or stupidity to do it. Except Kai Leng, maybe he would do it.

A Behring eased the car into a parking spot, I saw Anderson and Udina running toward us from across the hangar bay. Literaly, two old guys booking it to us as if the place was on fire.

Behring and I had a few words for them all right.

"Are you okay? Our men dropped out of contact and there were reports of gunfire at the building. Are you okay?" Anderson asked in a concerned, urgent tone.

"No shit Grandpa!" I shouted loud enough for it to echo throughout the hangar. " Our position was compromised as soon as your men got there. They were followed!" I shouted the truth at him from mere inches away from his face. yet I still didn't think I could hammer it into him hard enough to make it stick.

Shepard stepped in between us before Anderson could shout back.

"Let's take this inside, " he said in a firm voice.

We both nodded and we began walking across the garage toward the entrance to the SIU.

When we got inside, Sidereaux met us and we huddled inside the conference room once it was swept for bugs twice.

I considered leaning up against a wall with my arms folded, but I chose to sit, as I would have ended up doing so anyway. I flopped down inside an extra office chair near the corner, where I could watch the proceedings without drawing attention to myself.

Sidereaux began before anyone else could. "Behring! What happened? How did Cerberus find out where our safehouse was, kill ten officers, and then escape?"

"They simply followed the marines sent by the Citadel Senior's Center reps over here," I spoke up, wanting to get my point across. So much for going unnoticed.

Anderson and Udina turned around and faced me.

"It's your department that is corrupt, not ours!" Udina shouted. What he said had some truth to it. There was at least one rat in the SIU, we just had no idea who is was. But there were also multiple informants in every level of Citadel government.

I laughed at their empty accusation. "You're sitting down on the Citadel with punks like Palin and you're calling my department crooked? Oh yeah, that's right. I heard that Palin killed two officers in cold blood and you're still covering that up, have I got that right?" I demanded, not raising my voice this time, letting the words sink in.

That shut them up. Actually, that shut everybody up. The whole room was silent.

Behring cleared his throat, about to speak for the first time since the shootout.

"I have a theory on why we are compromised," he began, shifting his weight.

"When the former SIU officer Barrigan left, it is believed that he took with him some very advanced pieces of software, as to hold onto them for later usage."

"How do you know this?" Anderson asked softly, as if the conversation was somehow very delicate.

Sidereaux spoke up this time. "We have tried to keep the fact that he stole our software and administrator codes under wraps for the past several years with success, until now."

This was news to me. I had known Barrigan better than anyone, and I had no idea that he stole police equipment as well as murdering two officers. I had also had the pleasure of knowing them very well, and the displeasure of attending their funerals afterward. Barrigan had shot the two of them in the back too, just like the cowards that he now works for.

"_I would never try to kill someone if I thought that they could kill me."_

The words echoed in my head once again.

Ashley turned my way, studied me for a second, then turned back. My reaction was all over my face, and she must have seen it.

"Why didn't you tell anyone of this?" Shepard asked.

"We changed all of our access codes and put new security measures in place, as there was no way to put the software to use if he couldn't access our system. And even if he had, the events of the past two days have been completely off the books, not even a single keystroke indicating that Shepard was moved to one of our safehouses," Sidereaux reasoned, realizing the implications of what he had done for the first time.

"Unless Cerberus technitions hacked your system and watched security footage leading up to the departure," Shepard filled in the gaps for the rest of us.

"And then checked the anti theft software on your vehicles to get locations," Ashley said, rounding out the theory.

As much as I wanted to deny it, I knew it was true. Barrigan was really a rat bastard, wasn't he? He didn't just betray us four years ago, he had been betraying us ever since he was gone.

For some reason, I thought it might be a little easier to bring myself to kill him when the time came, having learned what he was.

Shepard took a step back, as if suddenly hit by something. His face then morphed into a look of insanity and rage. He was about to come un-glued from whatever sanity he had been hanging onto. Behring and I ran forward to stop him, as we have seen this plenty of times. But it was no less frightening.

He turned and grabbed a chair as if it were a child's toy and tossed it into one of the windows, splintering the glass and nearly sending the chair to the other end of the building.

We tried to grab him, but he collapsed onto the table in the center of the room, utterly defeated.

"Rats!" he screamed in a feral voice, sending chills up my spine. "Cerberus is wearing me out, Dignam. Just... wearing me out."

"Shepard, the universe is made of rats," I said, trying to calm him down.

He got to his feet quickly and strode out of the conference room, and nobody stopped him.

Poor guy. He wasn't used to playing The Game. Not like this.

Everyone sighed and Behring and I both retreated into our corners, remaining silent.

"We'll hold up here for the night and uh...see what morning brings" Anderson ended the meeting with a grim tone.

Behring and Sidereaux stationed more troopers on the lower levels and potential access points of the building, with everyone not on guard duty issued a weapon or told to keep it loaded if they had one already. I wandered around the station a little, going no particular direction. I walked past technicians checking their weapons and guards scurrying to and fro, locking the SIU down for the night.

This was bad, and I mean incredibly bad. And I have seen a lot of sick shit in my career as a cop. I am really hoping that it didn't get to Shepard this fast. I mean, getting crossed and double crossed and having to look over your shoulder every couple of minutes was stressful, and after all he had been through, it wasn't fair for him to get caught up in any of this. It wasn't fair for him to have to evade Cerberus after so willingly risk his life for humanity time and time again.

It wasn't fair to the police for that matter, but life isn't about being fair now is it? It's about strapping in and doing the best you can with what you have. Which is what I intended to do for the next couple of hours.

I joined with a pair of troopers who were working on a case of their own. They were rookies, only a couple of months out of the academy with little street smarts to match.

I gave them some pointers, cracked a couple of jokes, and then went to find Behring.

He was inside an office on the floor below mine, giving another turian staff sergeant and a EPSO trooper instructions on how the night was going to go for them; in a nutshell, long and suspenseful.

"Alright, now sergeant, I want you to disperse officers to the service entrances of the hangar and do radio checks every ten minutes."

He turned to the Special Operations trooper. "Trooper, I want your team on the third floor. Watch the entrances and exits. Nobody comes in and nobody goes out, got it?"

"What about the east stairwell, sir?" the staff sergeant asked, his bird-like head turning to the side quizzically.

"I have Bravina covering that area. Now get going, girls."

"Yes sir," they both saluted and walked away.

"Giving the girls the rundown?" I laughed.

He managed a smile. "Yep. That's about right. Have you told anybody what's really going on?"

"Of course not. Did you?"

"Nope. I volunteer you to come up with a lie and spread it around, " he grinned mischievously.

I accepted his challenge.

"Alright people, listen up!" I shouted above the dull roar. "If none of you have noticed, we have officially locked shit down for the night. And it's gonna stay that way until we hear otherwise. There was a legitimate bomb threat this morning, so we are all going to bunker down until Captain Sidereaux says otherwise.. If you have any questions, come find me so that I can tell you to jump up your own ass. Now does anybody have any questions?" I asked, beaming with pride.

Nobody answered.

"Good. Proceed!" I shouted, ending my little rant.

Behring was almost crying of laughter in the corner, trying not to let anyone notice.

I put my hands on my hips, satisfied. It was going to be a long night.

Ashley:

I wasn't sure where Shepard had run off to, but I knew that he probably wanted company, or he would have to suck it up and deal if he didn't because I wanted to see him.

I was still on the fifth floor where the conference room and Dignam's office had been. I was checking corners of rooms and near storage lockers, as those were his favorite places to go when he needed to think.

Finally, I rounded a corner to a waiting room overlooking the city and Shepard was staring into the window, mesmerized by the rain outside.

"Hi Ash," he said, not moving away from his new post. How did he hear me?

"Hi, Skipper. Do you want to be alone?" I asked.

He sighed. "Not really, so lets talk."

I went to his side and watched the rain smacking the windows with him. It was coming down as hard as it had been yesterday if not harder, obscuring the massive skyscrapers and busy airways just outside.

"You know, Ash. I remember when we talked and you told me that everyone will look out for themselves before anything else. I was trying to be optomistic when I said otherwise, but I think that you were right."

I didn't know what to say to that.

"But um, I just want you to know that no matter where everyone else's loyalty lies, I have your six."

I put a gentle hand on his shoulder. "Don't worry, whenever you need me, I'll be right here." I took a firm stance next to him for emphasis. "But I want you to tell me what has really been bothering you."

He sighed. "I don't know, Ash. It's just that um..." He trailed off, looking for the words.

I waited for him to continue, still gently rubbing his shoulder.

"The problem is that I used to stand for something, Ash. I used to be part of something. Commander Shepard. I knew what I was supposed to do and did my duty the best I could," he was almost in tears now. "Now I don't stand for anything, your know? I'm just out there with a ship and a crew and all we're doing is killing and dying, and none of us even stand for anything. Garrus used to when he was at C-Sec and Miranda and Jacob had Cerberus, but we're not part of that now, either. Now I've been cast out of everything that I have known and have just been kind of roaming the galaxy, you know? Looking for a way to stop the reapers."

"And that is what your mission has become," I told him. "To stop the reapers no matter what. And in doing this, you might have to go solo for a while, because very few people are going to man up and do it."

"And, um... Lately I've been trying to be a good Samaritan, right? Because now I'm not actually saving lives. All I'm doing is taking them. And maybe after taking all of those lives I can finally save a few more someday. Maybe to justify all of the horrible things I've done, and let me go through the day without killing myself to tell everyone it'll be okay, and then not sleeping at night."

He was in tears now, this was the first time I had seen him cry. I couldn't believe what he had been going through in his heart. He was always tough, always optomistc and eager to help people, but it was seriously taking a toll on his personal life.

"Shepard," Now it was difficult for me to speak without crying. "I have always wanted to tell you that you are an incredible person. And you have saved more lives than you could ever take. You are not a murderer, you are a soldier. You fight for what you believe in and you don't give up. That's what separates you from the rest. You never give up."

He suddenly caught me in an embrace, his arms pulling me closer. "I love you, Ash."

"I love you too, John."

I realized something in that moment. Shepard and I needed each other. We had always needed each other ever since we met.

I couldn't tell how long had passed before we let go, but I didn't care. Everything else could wait.

"Now lets go and get us some badguys, Skipper."

"Lead the way, Ash."

After our emotional gush-fest, we went to find Anderson and the others.

The first person we saw was Sidereaux, resting in an executive chair in the middle of the office.

"Hey, Captain," I greeted him.

He turned. "Hello, Williams. Shepard, are you okay? Do you need to lie down?"

"I'll be fine, thank you. But seriously, I can't thank your department enough, Captain. Without you sending-"

"It's my pleasure, son. We have actually been making headway with Cerberus since you arrived. So the feeling is mutual."

I was comfortable letting those two talk it out, strengthening some poor relations between the Alliance and the police.

Anderson and Udina arrived next, both of them now wearing sidearms.

Anderson nodded toward me. I liked the informality for a change. It was much less tense.

Dignam and Behring were walking toward us from the main elevator at the opposite end of the building, chatting.

All seemed peaceful for a change. Maybe that was a problem.

I looked toward the doorway to see a pair of Alliance soldiers exiting the stairs. That was odd, I didn't know that any more had come.

Both of them were cradling packages close to their chests, and both had long, wavy hair.

Warning bells went off in my head. Alliance regs say that nobody can have hair over a few inches long and serve as a marine. There was too much wrong with this picture for it to be a coincidence.

I reached for my sidearm, but it was too late. Both of them had removed Tempest submachine guns from the overstuffed envelopes and took aim at the commander.

Somebody had screamed, drawing attention to the newcomers.

As I pulled my Predator out of my waistband, one of them had already drawn a bead on Shepard.

Suddenly, someone lunged and knocked Shepard to the ground just as the Tempest erupted and tore apart the cubicle behind where Shepard had been standing.

I didn't look back to see who had done it, I just racked my handgun and opened fire.

Neither of them had kinetic barriers on, so the bullets tore open the chest of the lead gunman and knocked him to the floor.

Everyone dived for cover as a second burst of fire was heard. Guns were out in a flash, returning fire from across the office.

The survivor had grabbed the gun from his fallen comrade and now fired both indiscriminately from behind a reception desk. I pressed myself against the carpet, feeling the hot air of bullets whizzing past me.

Suddenly, another gunman came running out of the stairwell, wielding an Eviscerator shotgun. he fired the street sweeper, trying to provide some cover for his friend to escape. Unfortunately for him, a shotgun isn't the type of weapon you want to use for suppressive fire.

Anderson and I were crouching behind a desk, waiting for the metallic clang of his thrid shot, the end of his magazine.

When it finally came, we both stuck our weapons over the edge of the desk and fired in the general direction of the shooter.

As we rose, dust and shrapnel forced us back down after only a couple of poorly aimed shots.

Even though our shots had been wild, I heard a scream from the shotgunner.

I dropped down on my stomach and peeked through the space between the desk and the floor.

After a couple of seconds, I spotted the Eviscerator laying on the floor with a bloodied forestock. He was wounded. Maybe he was dead already.

My hopes of having already scored a critical hit were dashed when I heard a series of three round bursts from a cut-down Shuriken SMG slice through the air, shattering a window directly behind us.

Anderson and I crouched down, backs against the desk we were behind and reloaded. We were hopelessly outgunned.

I looked to the left to see Behring, Dignam and Shepard all behind an overturned desk, struggling to get clean shots off. Several other officers were pinned behind desks or in doorways by the incessant fire.

Suddenly, Sidereaux charged from his position behind us and slid across the carpet alongside Anderson and I.

"Williams! Anderson! Give me cover! I'm going to get that shotgun!"

I was startled by his new strategy, but Anderson and I agreed.

He waited until the first gunman had to reload, then skirted around several desks in a shooter's crouch, unnoticed by our adversaries.

As promised, Anderson and I layed down suppression fire, emptying several thermal clips at the Cerberus agents.

Sidereaux paused behind a registration desk, then made a break for the fallen shotgun, which was about five meters away.

Sidereaux grabbed the gun, not slowing down or stumbling.

He ran up to the wounded shooter and plugged him center mass with his new weapon, throwing the man backward violently as the metal buckshot tore through him. He didn't hesitate, closing in on the double fisted shooter and firing two rounds in his direction in the same instant.

I watched as both of his guns fell out of his hands and over his makeshift bunker, clattering to the floor.

I could actually hear them clatter because the gunfire had ceased, with all of the targets down for the count.

"Anyone hurt? Is everyone okay?" The voice belonged to Shepard, looking out for others as usual.

I stood up, keeping my weapon drawn just in case. I surveyed the damage.

The shootout had torn the office apart, with holes torn through walls, desks, carpet. Nearly every window on the floor was shattered from the gunfire, pieces of busted glass lying scattered around the debris. When I looked around, I saw that no officers had died or were seriously injured, thank the lord. When I looked at the firing line that had consisted of our SIU officers and Shepard, I saw them hauling a wounded Udina to his feet.

Udina had been hit in the forearm, not s serious injury, but painful nonetheless.

Wait. He had been the one who had pushed Shepard out of the line of fire!

"Udina, are you okay" Shepard asked him, Behring helping him to his feet.

"Yes. I now have a little more respect for what you do Shepard," was his drowsy sounding response. "Just a little bit more."

Behring and another trooper helped him up and walked him to the medical bay.

"I don't believe it," I said out loud.

Anderson shook his head, showing what passed for a grin under the circumstances.

Suddenly, Dignam's comm device went off. A panicked female voice was shouting into it.

"Dignam, if you can hear me then get to the hangar and get there fast! Barrigan's here! He's their wheelman and he's about to get away. I can't hold him off for much longer!"

At the word 'Barrigan', he was up and running, barreling at a breakneck speed down the stairs before we could stop him.

I ran after him, but he was too far ahead of me for me to save him if Barrigan was waiting for him.

I remembered this morning when neither one of them could bring themselves to kill the other. Somehow, I didn't think that they would be as merciful this time.

Dignam:

Before the message was over, I was already out the door and down one flight of stairs. I never knew I could move this fast.

When I got to the level with the hangar, I ripped open the door to the garage, not having the time to wait for it to crawl open on its own.

The garage remained unaffected by the damage that had torn apart the floor two levels above, and was seemingly empty, with rows of police cruisers and armored transports in sloppy rows along either end.

Then I noticed the dull grey car with blacked out windows parked haphazardly in the middle. No doubt that they had been in a hurry to get into the building.

I saw Barrigan crouching on my side, facing the opposite direction, engaged in a firefight with the EPSO trooper who had called for backup. Barrigan was wearing dark, faded clothing, inadvertently matching the car, with the straps of his shoulder holster forming a black x across his back, just like my leather one did.

I raised my Camifex sidearm, aiming down the sights directly in the center of the x on his back. I considered shooting him, but I held my fire. I wasn't going to kill him like he had killed my friends; like a coward.

"Barrigan! Turn around and face me!" I screamed, keeping my gun level.

"You'll have to shoot me brother!" he shouted back, still not facing me. We had always called each other 'brother', even though we weren't blood related, we could have been. He said this knowing I wouldn't shoot, just like I knew he wouldn't take a chance and attempt to turn around and get blown away.

"Come on, brother! Put your weapon down and I'll take you in!" I shouted desperately, trying to give him a chance.

"Why? So I can rot in some hole for the rest of my life? No, Dignam. My freedom was taken away a long time ago."

He jumped forward and slid across the hood with amazing speed before throwing himself in the unlocked driver's side door. The EPSO trooper opened fire, narrowly missing him as he yanked the door closed behind him, the bullets having no effect on the car's kinetic barriers that had been installed by Cerberus.

The motor hummed to life and the vehicle rose above the ground, gathering energy for a sudden takeoff.

He wasn't getting away from me this time. I sprinted toward the car, covering the distance before the car was a meter above the floor. I knew my weapon was useless, so I managed to secure it inside my shoulder holster before jumping onto the roof and grabbing the kinetic generator. I wrapped my arms around the circular device and jammed my hands into a recess in the heavy plastic polymer.

This didn't slow him down in the least. He took off, reaching twice the speed limit before he exited the hangar, narrowly avoiding a police van on the way out.

As soon as we were outside, a wall of water slammed into the car, as it was still raining on Elysium yet again.

My eyes were pushed shut by the sheer speed and the droplets that felt like BB gun pelets against my face and arms.

My hands were firmly stuck in the crevice, preventing me from reaching my weapon. Even if i could manage it, my weapon would probably fall out of my hand as soon as I unsnapped it from my holster. I decided not to try it.

It was a good thing too, because Barrigan was only going faster by the second, increasing the velocity of the buckshot that was raindrops hammering me.

Finally, I managed to pry my eyes open, shielding my face behind the kinetic device. All I could see were buildings and streaks of color that were other cars gliding past, oblivious to the madness that was occurring right in front of them. This had to be stopped before someone was killed, and by someone I mean me.

I managed to pull one arm free, grabbing my weapon and firing at the stabilizer on the right side of the vehicle.

On the fourth shot, I heard the satisfying sound of a short circuit in the vehicle's engines, and the corresponding drop in altitude.

Maybe this wasn't such a good idea.

He began to set the car down on a rooftop. I couldn't see what kind of surface we were about to land on, I just prayed that it was soft.

I clamped my jaw down and gritted my teeth just before impact. The landing wasn't a crash at all, it was a very risky hockey stop landing atop a factory building. Or at least that's what the maze of pipes and vents made it look like.

When we slid to a stop, I finally let go, my gun tumbling into oblivion and my body dropping onto the gravel below.

I thought I would be able to get up, but the heavy rain that had pelted me left all of my muscles numb and painful to move. I couldn't fight him, not when he still had his weapon on him. I always wore a backup on my ankle when in the field, and never even thought about it on my way out.

Come on, Dignam. You can take him.

I willed myself to my feet, fueled by adrenaline and adrenaline alone, because no other energy was left.

I heard Barrigan groan as he stumbled out of the passenger door, hanging onto his sidearm.

I was on my feet now, and only a few meters from him. I had to take him now while he was disoriented or I would never have a chance.

I charged him again and silently prayed that he wouldn't turn around before I got to him. He began to look around, trying to locate me among the mess of pipeworks, turning and facing me. But it was too late.

My right arm clubbed him in the temple, causing his shot to miss me completely. he fell to the gravel, onto his hands and knees.

I dropped down to hit him again, but he pulled his gun up again, clipping me in the jaw in the process and firing a round that burned the cartalidge on my ear.

I tasted blood, but I wasn't going to stop now.

I threw up my left arm, messing up his next two shots. But instead of attempting to shoot again, he slammed a knee into my side and brought a left hook into my jaw.

The air rushed out of me, leaving me defenseless as he brought the dreaded pistol to bear once again. I was helpless, or so he thought.

He was looking down at me, shaking his bruised head in contempt.

"Sorry brother."

He pulled the trigger.

But instead of the bullet tearing my head apart, there was a simple click. He tried it twice more, not realizing what had happened.

Between engaging the trooper in the garage and his misplaced shots here on the rooftop, he had run out of bullets.

His face turned from a look of contempt to a look of horror as he realized that this was going to be a fair fight. His face was still like that when I grabbed him by the collar and slammed my forehead into his with a sickening crack.

I was seeing stars as I grabbed a bar to haul myself up, but he could barely see anything at all. It took only moments for him to recover and take a fighting stance, no gun this time.

I matched him, refusing to relent even through the rain and the intense pain that now seared my body.

"Come on, Barrigan. No guns. Just you and me."

He nodded. "Fine. But I remember you saying once that you would never try to kill someone if you thought they could kill you back."

_"I would never try to kill someone if I thought that they could kill me."_

The man who had said those words, the bastard who had just proven how cowardly he was...

That man was really me.

That man was Max Dignam, a Cerberus agent who had turned his life around and became a cop. A cop who had been saved from his well deserved fate in the gas chamber by Sergeant Barrigan eight years ago, when he was hired as a consultant to the SIU in its earliest days. A man who had watched his best friend who had saved his soul become corrupted into joining the faction that they had been fighting for so long.

"We're two of a kind, Barrigan," I spoke the absolute truth to him. "Let's do this."

We circled each other menacingly. The talking was over, there would be no mercy here.

He came at me first, closing the distance in a moment and throwing a roundhouse kick at my side.

I stepped back, letting him lose his footing from hitting nothing but the rain before hitting him square on the nose, a spray of red soared in an arc as his head bucked backward, his nose broken.

He regained his balance before I could land another blow. He feigned left and kicked me directly under the rib cage, the second time in a row he had deprived me of oxygen in five minutes. I didn't recover fast enough, as his next two punches battered either side of my face.

I fell back in pain against the pipework behind me. My vision was blurring. He knew that he had me.

He threw a three fingered jab with his right hand, aiming for my windpipe. There was only one thing I could do.

I dropped down, letting his fist hit the unforgiving metal behind me. As it did there was a sickening series of cracks as his hand broke violently. I watched from below as he fell backward, face twisted into an inhuman look of agony.

Now was my chance. I rushed him, unafraid of my former savior.

He tossed wild fist with his left hand, but I ducked and caught his left arm with my right, holding him firmly in an arm lock.

I may be right handed to an extreme degree, but I can still punch with my left just as well.

And so I did. I held him firmly by the arm and hit him again and again and again, aiming for his nose and teeth, beating him to a pulp.

Then I threw a fist into his kidney, doubling him over. My hand was covered in blood, even with the rain coming down I could tell that I had seriously wounded him.

Suddenly he threw an elbow with his free arm into my stomach at an awkward angle. It hit me even harder than I thought it did, sending the white hot pain of being hit three times in the same area through my nervous system, blotting out everything else and bringing me down to the floor.

I pried my eyes open after a couple of seconds, pushing myself harder than I have ever been pushed just to open my eyes.

I have to get up. I have to get up.

I squinted and saw him limping toward the edge of the roof, aiming for the gutter. Was he nuts? He couldn't survive a fall from this height!

I had to do something. I felt the bulge of my phone in my front pocket, but there was no time to call for help.

Suddenly I knew what he was doing. I saw the faint gleam of the safety catch of my sidearm in the gutter, the rest under the water. And he was only getting closer.

I knew what I had to do. He was going to kill me, but this was bigger than me or him or even Shepard. To hell with it.

I ran at him, fighting to stay consious as I staggered over the slippery rooftop.

I was so close. I saw him draw my Camifex from the rainwater, thick droplets falling from the barrel as he did so. I knocked him down as he turned around, sending the gun back into the gutter with a splash.

He moaned in agony as he lay on his stomach in the water. He barely noticed me climb over him and retrieve my gun from the warm water and aim it at the base of his skull.

"Just do it," Barrigan spat, getting up on his knees and hanging his head, accepting his well deserved end.

But I held my fire. I refused to shoot an unarmed man. I couldn't. Call it human weakness or compassion or whatever else, but there was no way he was going to die by my hand. There was more than one reason I didn't kill Barrigan here that people would remember long after I was gone and Barrigan would die from not knowing.

"I'm sorry, Travis," he looked up, hearing his name for the first time in many years. "I just see too much of myself in you."

I released the gun, letting it clatter and splash onto the rooftop.

He looked up, his barely recognisable face registering utter shock.

Suddenly he screamed, "No!" but not at me.

I turned, seeing two more Cerberus agents on the rooftop, clutching rifles. There was nothing I could do.

They raised their weapons and cut me down.

**There's the end of the second act, culminating with the showdown between Travis Barrigan and Max Dignam. There is still much more to come...**

**Please give me feedback on the story so far! Thanks for reading!**


	3. We Own The Night

Mass Effect: The Faithful Departed

Shepard:

I didn't believe it. Dignam was gone.

We raced after the car as soon as we could, but it was already too late to save him.

By the time we got to the roof, the only evidence of what transpired there were the broken pipeworks and a massive pool of blood. Cerberus has hauled off the rest at an alarming speed, as Dignam's body, Barrigan and the wrecked car were nowhere to be found.

I raced out of the cruiser that Ash, Behring and I were in and into the center of the tragety before it had come to a complete stop, ignoring the heavy rain and shouts from other officers to stay back.

I spotted Dignam's hand canon lying in a pool of red, with the magazine almost empty. That was all that had been left behind, probably on purpose for us to know who did this. Sick sons of bitches, they never even showed respect to the bodies of the departed. Dignam's body was probably going to be used for research, like many others I had seen while investigating Cerberus facilities.

Anderson trotted up to me and rested a hand on my shoulder. "We have to leave this place, Shepard. Back to the station, both of you!" I turned to see that Ashley was right behind me, an empty look on her face.

I turned to look at him through the veil of rain, but his stony expression was unreadable. No doubt he felt the same way I did, but he had twenty years more experience dealing with loss than I do. I started to say something in protest, but it would have been in vain.

I grudgingly walked away, leaving behind the sight of Dignam's last stand.

We arrived back at the SIU via Behring's cruiser.

As he pulled into the hangar, I could tell he was even more upset than I was, struggling to hold back tears. Dignam had been his best friend, and Cerberus had even taken that away from him. When I asked him if he wanted to take a leave of absence, he turned to me and started shouting.

"Jesus Christ! You know Dignam had a whole life ahead of him! He could have been so much more, and now he won't even get a proper funeral for all he did," his outburst would have sounded like that of a mental patient had the circumstances been any different.

Ash attempted to comfort him. "Can we get benefits for his family? Maybe that would help."

By now Behring had parked the car and jumped out. He turned around and walked away, and neither of us tried to stop him. He had the stride of a broken man, one who was truly at the end of his rope yet was still fighting for something. When he was at the other end of the hangar he turned around and faced us for the first time since the he had seen the scene of Dignam's murder.

"He hasn't got any family!" was the last thing he said to us before leaving and shutting the door behind him.

When all of us recovered from the shock of his death at the hands of Barrigan, we held a war council in Sidereaux's office.

Ash, Anderson, Udina, Behring, and Sidereaux were present, cramming into the small work area meant for one.

It was a long five minutes before anybody spoke, as nobody knew how to begin without either dwelling of Dignam's death or not giving it the respect it deserved. I had been in situations more tense than this, but all my experience gave me nothing to say. I had known Dignam for only two days, but I was still too attached to him to offer some third party comfort to his fellow officers.

Finally, Sidereaux stood up from behind his desk and cleared his throat. All eyes were on him as he spoke.

"I demanded that the surveilance tapes from the cameras on the roof be delivered here immediately after the shootout and," he looked down at his office computer, as if he were pausing to read the script for his speech."They have come in. I'll find a briefing room that is still intact to examine them." He walked out of the office, Behring in toe.

"Wait," I stopped him. "I want to see them."

He turned around. "Shepard, I appreciate your concern, but it really is not what you need right now. You all should get some rest."

"Hey Sidereaux," Ashley spoke up.

"Yes Chief?"

"Show us the damn tapes."

Five minutes later, we all had converged inside a briefing room as Behring decoded the tapes for us to watch. This briefing room was set up more like a movie theater than a conference center like the last one. Padded chairs sat bolted to the floor at one end with a massive display screen dominating the opposite wall, complete with a retractable tray table on the right arm of each chair. No doubt that this place was made specificaly for what we were doing now.

The room had one design flaw, however. The chairs were all padded, and we were dog tired from the hectic shitstorm of a day. Put two and two together people. We would all probably fall asleep watching it.

Ashley took a seat next to me and began pretended to be asleep, snoring like a bear. We all laughed at her impression of us in about five minutes.

We shouldn't be laughing now, I know, but we were at the edge of our sanity on this god forsaken planet.

Behring stepped away from the terminal at the front of the room and hurried back to his seat, not wanting to miss a moment of what happened.

As the video started playing, all we saw was the pipeworks on the roof getting dumped on by rain. Behring zoomed through this section with his remote and stopped when the time stamp was five minutes prior to the firefight in the police station, as per Sidereaux's instructions.

The passive rythum of the raindrops pitter-pattering on the metal continued and the incomprehensable maze of pipework was the same, but these sounds were now joined by extended bursts of gunfire, no doubt from the SIU a few blocks away. The gunfire lasted several minutes longer than I remembered it. That's one thing I had been taught in my N7 training.

"_You can never accurately discern the time you are in combat once you are engaged. You must formulate a strategy and execute it without getting dragged down by externalities."_

The words of Gunny Ellyson, my former DI and a likely candidate for a career in stage acting once he retired from the Alliance.

I realized that I had zoned out and focused my attention back on the screen, which was still projecting the same image that it had been showing five minutes ago. But this image was acompanied by a new sound, a soft whine like that of an engine.

Suddenly, we watched Barrigan's car make a crash landing amidst the maze of metal on the roof. Only after the vehicle had entered the screen did I realize that the camera was elevated and looking at a downward angle at the roof. It was a cleaver way to see through the metal piping without having multiple cameras.

For the next couple of minutes, we witnessed the action that had taken place only a half hour ago, intently waching from our safe little air conditioned environment. I never knew how scrappy they both were, as the two seemed to have similar training and endurance. I saw this more and more as the fight progressed. Finally, Dignam got ahold of his weapon, yet refused to shoot his enemy.

This baffled me. I had a habit of giving people second chances, espescially if someone else wanted to kill them. But stopping mid adrenaline rush and walking away was something I had never seen before, and I've been to a lot of places in my exploits.

Then Barrigan rose up and held out a hand, as if motioning someone to stop.

Suddenly, two figures wielding assault rifles appeared on screen, opening fire despite Barrigan's plea.

I turned away as Dignam was shot repeatedly, blood spurting from his leg, stomach, and upper body as the bullets smashed into him, throwing him to the ground. His body fell behind a pipe, obscuring it from view. For the first time ever, I was glad not to have seen the whole picture.

The figures were human, no doubt. They wore standard business suits with bulky rain jackets with the hoods pulled tight over their eyes. One helped an unwilling Barrigan to his feet while the other secured the rooftop, swinging his rifle right and left. Eventually, he saw the camera and fired a short burst from his Avenger.

The video turned to static.

Behring gagged, running from his seat out the door, finding this to be too much.

I could have followed him, but I needed to stay here. _Commander_ Shepard. I wasn't supposed to be afraid of anything. I was supposed to be indestructable too. So much for that.

That was my duty. I had to be the guy who told everyone else it would be okay, even though it wouldn't be. I had to do it because there was nobody else who was willing to.

"Why didn't he pull the trigger?" Ashley voiced what we were all thinking. Why didn't he do it? Why show Barrigan mercy then?

"I don't know," Sidereaux answered, a hollow look on his face.. "They were close friends back when they were both in the SIU. That was probably it. The two were were like brothers, you would have thought it if you had seen them."

"Hey, can you tell what he said to Barrigan? I could have sworn he said something before trying to walk away, Ashley voiced her thoughts aloud, already walking to the terminal at one end of the screen.

A couple of seconds later, she found what she had been looking for, freezing the video right as Dignam had Barrigan execution style on the roof.

"Watch him before he walks away. I swear I heard something."

She played the video.

I watched close, and I saw what Ashley had spotted seconds before. His lips were moving before turning around. Ashley paused the video again before we had to watch him getting shot again. I had mistaken his voice with the moaning of Barrigan, and I could tell we were onto something.

"Williams, turn it up as high as it will go. This room is soundproof," Sidereaux ordered, also interested.

Ashley did as directed, and the rain now sounded like gunfire and the gunfire like a series of explosions. But it was necessary.

I could finally tell what he said when I strained my ears and leaned close to the speakers.

"I'm sorry Travis. I just see too much of myself in you."

I felt like I just had a breakthrough, yet disappointed at the same time. The exitement came from discovering the truth, but the truth had only been one of human weakness. It was nice, he went out doing the right thing, but our last possible lead was gone.

"I'll help the officers downstairs clean up," I piped up, converting my raw emotion into energy before I could realize how mad I was. It was a trick that worked well, but it made me feel less human every time I did it. Ashley followed me out the door before I could refuse her presence.

The door slid shut behind us, sealing us off from that horrible incident.

I began walking to the elevator at a brisk pace, not slowing down for Ash. She had no problem catching up, gliding smoothly over the tiled floor until she was at my side.

I leaned up against the back of the elevator, choosing not to take my usual wide stance. She followed suit, leaning back and scooting close to me until she brushed up against my side. I didn't move, her warmth sooting me. I could feel her heartbeat and steady breathing. She was exited, probably left over from being on the verge of finding us a new lead. Poor Ash, she had been so convinced that she had something, but it was in vain.

"I'm sorry, Skipper. I could have sworn I saw something. Maybe it wasn't even that, but it just looked like... something."

She had the same hollow look on her face as Anderson and Sidereaux now had. She had failed what she thought she was supposed to do and she knew it.

"Ash, don't ever worry about not doing your job. You are the best soldier I have met. You push yourself past the pain that would break any other Marine, and you don't stop. You never stop. You've never stopped doing your duty for anything, even me." A remembered the nightmare of a reunion on Horizon.

"I haven't stopped because I haven't had a choice," she said simply.

"You have always had a choice, Ash. Don't let anybody tell you otherwise."

"I do what I'm supposed to do, nothing more. And when I can't do that, what have I got?" She stopped me in my tracks. Obviously my sensitive approach wasn't going to cut it. Time to improvise.

"You know what Ash, you're right."

She looked at me in suprise. "Excuse me?"

I held back a smile. "Yep. That's right. If that is what you truly believe, then I'm with you all the way."

She didn't know what to say, baffled by my non-contradictory response to her putting herself down. "Are you screwing with me?"

"Nope, Ash. You can believe that you are not good enough and I'm okay with that, just don't let me catch you _goldbricking_ or anything like that."

She caught on to what I was doing as soon as the word _goldbricking_ came out of my mouth. She turned and punched me in the stomach playfully. I wasn't going to give her the satisfaction of her knowing that she could punch harder than I could, so I did my best to keep a straight face as the wind got squeezed out of me.

We both resumed our silent vigil at the back of the elevator as it neared our floor.

After a few more seconds she nodded and turned to face me. I was expecting another punch, but I got the exact opposite.

"Thanks, Shepard. It's nice having a voice of reason every once in a while."

With that, the elevator door opened and we entered the DMZ that had once been our hub in the SIU.

Officers were scurrying around, picking up debris and keeping tabs on files that had been damaged or misplaced. Others ran in from the matinence levels, rushing to replace the glass that had been busted out or the desks that had been ruined by the sheer volume of gunfire. Despite the rushed pace, the office seemed to be underwater. Everyone moved like they were at a funeral and worked with somber faces and clenched jaws. They were all no doubt angry at the number of officers that had died at the hands of Cerberus, and were moving hurriedly to get the repairs done so that they could begin hunting down Kai Leng and the rest of them.

I have never seen a Salarian scowl at me before, but they twist their faces and narrow their enormous eyes into menacing cresant moons and glare, not blinking for anything. I got that look from every other technician I walked past. Some humans nodded in our direction while others ignored us completely, upset with our presence and the devestation it had brought. I couldn't hold their resentment against them, but that didn't make the whole scene any better.

We helped with what we could, but in the end, we were dismissed by several officers. BY the end of the night I had heard the phrase,"You've done enough here," around half a dozen times, the sinister double meaning haunting me.

At one point, an asari officer stepped up on a chair and read 'The Lord's Prayer for The Faithful Departed' for all of us. We out our hands over our empty hearts as we listened. I had heard many prayers from many walks of life, but none quite as haunting as that.

_"May all the souls of the Faithful Departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen."_

The asari's final line of the prayer left me speechless. Everyone saluted before returning to work, moving in slow motion now, dragged down further by the prayer. It had offered some closure to all of us though, as we tried to continue with our duty despite the difficult times.

Night came and Ashley and I were given bunks in one of the abandoned conference rooms, with a few holes still unrepaired. We were given sleeping bags and pillows and told to get some rest. It was funny, because usually I'm the one that is having to tell people to eat and sleep when the road gets rough.

The thoughts of the past two days were running laps in my head, sprinting an endless marathon and waving to me every time one passed, reminding me just how deep I was. The lack of sleep didn't bother me, as I had gone many sleepless nights, lost in my own thoughts and trying to think of ways to make ammends for all of the lives I've taken. Somewhere along the line, Ash's steady breathing and the rain hitting the windows lulled me to sleep.

I'm a very heavy sleeper, believe it or not. I have set records for staying awake at Arcturus, but crashed and slept like a rock afterwards. So I was suprised when I woke up and found that Ash had gone.

Somehow, I knew right where she would be.

I made my way down to the conference theater we had examined the tape in earlier and found Ash watching the playback again.

"Ash, you need sleep."

"No. I need to find this," she said with conviction, staring intently at the screen.

"What are you looking for?"

"I swear to the lord that I saw something. No, something before Dignam talked to him, and it's in here somewhere."

She was watching the part where Barrigan attempts to reach Dignam's gun, but is knocked down. The part right before he gets shot.

Suddenly, she paused the recording, a light bulb shining over her head.

"Shepard! See that right there?" she pointed to Dignam's hand as he knocked Barrigan down with her entire arm.

I squinted and saw a blurry object slip into Barrigan's pocket before the two hit the ground. A cell phone.

Ash and I stood in awe of the bold move. His phone could be tracked by the police.

It could be tracked right to Barrigan and Cerberus.

Ash and I ran around, waking up the others like it was Christmas morning, pulling them into the elevator while babbling in exitement.

Sidereaux, Anderson, Behring, and Udina all could not believe it once they saw what really happened.

As soon as we could, we accessed the nearest computer terminal and entered the tracking number of Dignam's phone, tracing it all the way to a warehouse just south of the city limits.

Behring rallied a two dozen EPSO troopers and Anderson got on the horn with the Marines stationed at the local Alliance barracks, putting them on standby.

We were going to take those pricks tonight.

I was given standard issue combat armor and an Avenger assault rifle and a spare Katana shotgun in addition to my pistol. Ash suited up in her pheonix armor, taking a Revenant and an Eviscerator shotgun along.

This was the most exited I had been since the attack on the Collector base three months ago. We were getting somewhere. After being attacked nonstop for 48 hours, we now get to turn the tables on Cerberus, about ready to bring a godly freaking firestorm of hot lead down on their base of operations.

I glanced around, seeing that the EPSO troopers were ready and eager to move, gunning for payback against the Cerberus dogs. While waiting, many took out hand held laser torches and engraved a series of letters on the forestock of their rifles, Behring and Sidereaux included.

I was shy about approaching them, as my presence made their words frosty at best considering what had happened. I could always learn what they had written afterward.

However, one turian walked up to me and outright showed me his rifle, a smile on his face. Engraved on the forestock of his Mantis rifle were the words:

_"WE OWN THE NIGHT"_

The words were inspirational, but I didn't know what they meant.

The turian sniper explained that the phrase had been a rallying cry during the drug wars of the 2150's during which red sand had first hit the market and was exploding, dealers and manufacturers making millions of credits per hour and stacking up bodies by the day. The phrase had also been used during the 1980's on earth during a similar crisis. Now, the cry was heard once again.

Before we knew it, it was time to move.

Elsewhere:

"Oh my god! Oh my god!"

Barrigan couldn't stop pacing. He couldn't stop thinking about letting Dignam die on the rooftop. Kai Leng and the others had given him some pills to calm his nerves, not aware of the stress it was actually causing him.

_I see too much of myself in you._

Barrigan couldn't stop thinking about it, pacing from one side of the cramped room to the other a hundred times a minute, or so it seemed.

He couldn't forgive himself for allowing his brother in arms to die, and he would never be forgiven by the police either. It was no less than he deserved and he knew it.

Barrigan had been posted as a lookout, watching the rain relent on the capital city of Elysium. No cops or marines had passed through the road to his outpost, as they would have to to reach the facility. In five minutes it wouldn't matter anyway. The Illusive Man had ordered the Cerberus agents to close up shop and to leave Elysium, disgusted by the amount of men lost attempting to recapture Shepard.

Barrigan wanted nothing more, either. He wanted out of this place, this prison, this reality or whatever it was called by normal people.

There were two guided misslie launchers resting against the wall next to a single chair and Barrigan's one bag of belongings, containing nothing more than clothes, ammo, and some cash from a local Cerberus slush fund. Barrigan had been ordered to radio for backup and make a stand with the missiles if he even suspected a cop was in the 12 block radius.

But police cruisers and marine transports were now seeping into the area, within range of the missiles. Barrigan hoped that they would never come, but they had found a way. The cruisers and transportes were merely shadows with the sirens and lights switched off, gliding into position, a block away from Barrigan's window, lights off.

Barrigan, hefted one of the launchers, feeling the weight in his battered arms, holding the trigger with his left hand, his right still soaked with medi gel and covered in bandages.

Suddenly, Barrigan dropped the launcher to the floor with a heavy thud. He wasn't going to do this. _Dignam wouldn't want me to._

_That's right brother. We are two of a kind._

Barrigan gave Kai Leng and the others an all clear, choosing to redeem himself in his last moments instead of siding with Cerberus.

_Nobody would know what I did, but that's not why you do good things is it? Maybe it can save my soul, brother. Maybe we'll see each other tonight._

Barrigan jogged back to the old brick warehouse where Kai Leng was waiting for him in an indiscriminate car. His was the second of seven in the convoy, with two armored vans and other vehicles rearing to go.

Barrigan jumped in, throwing his bag into the back seat as he did. He nodded to Kai Leng, who turned back to the disrepaired road in front of him, a look of cool contempt on his face.

The convoy was transporting twenty of the thirty Cerberus operatives and tech specialists assigned to Kai's team to a private spaceport just outside the city, only five klicks away.

As they pulled out into the abandoned factory complex and onto the slick roads leading away from the factory district, only Barrigan knew what was going to happen.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Three flashbang grenades went off just off the nose of the lead vehicle, blinding the entire convoy in a brilliant flash.

Red and Blue blurs came alive in the distance, signaling the police raid.

"Cocksuckers!" Kai Leng spat, drawing his weapon and throwing the car into reverse. As soon as he did, Barrigan felt the car smack the vehicle behind them. They were pinned.

Barrigan drew his own gun from under his armpit and looked up.

The Elysium police had opened fire.

Ashley:

Thirty rifles all erupted in the same moment, spewing a wall of hot lead at the stunned vehicles in front of us.

I was crouching behind the door of an armored police cruiser, firing my Revenant alongside Shepard and Anderson, as well as over twenty Elysium troopers and several squads of marines. We had managed to get here without any interferance, a nice change of pace.

The two Cerberus agents in the lead car jumped out and attempted to return fire, still recovering from the flashbang grenades.

They were cut down almost instantly, kinetic barriers fizzling out and jets of red erupting from their bodies. They didn't get up.

All of the cars were attempting to take off in a frenzied panic, colliding with each other in the process. This forced more agents out of the cover of their armored cars and into out fields of fire.

A woman wielding a shotgun burst out of her vehicle and made a break for the guardrail.

I fired off ten rounds, seeing a red mist in the headlights of the car behind her. She crumpled, falling onto the railing and hanging there at an impossible angle. I ducked, seeing a series of muzzle flashes erupt from windows in the factory building.

I reloaded, having spent all eighty rounds in a matter of seconds. When I crouched behind the car to do so, I saw Shepard wielding a grenade launcher.

He fired off two high explosive rounds at the middle of the fracas.

They both struck in the middle of the convoy, picking up a car and tossing it like a flaming arrow into the building behind it, silencing the men who were shooting from behind the wall.

Suddenly a lone figure ran out from the passenger door of the second car. Even in the darkness I could see that it was Barrigan.

He was running straight at the police firing line, pumping the trigger of his pistol in vain. It was weird, almost as if he had given up trying to escape. If he wanted suicide by cop, then he was going to get it.

I turned my weapon to him and fired a short burst, stopping him in his tracks. I could only see his sillowette in the darkness of 3 AM, but I knew I had hit him.

He dropped his gun and fell to his knees before collapsing in a puddle, dead as a doornail. Funny, he hadn't even tried to hit me.

I turned my attention to the rest of the pileup of cars, emptying the magazine of my rifle in the general direction of the incoming fire.

Less than half a dozen Cerberus men were still alive and blind firing with what they had left. The others were either lying out in the road or had retreated into the building.

The sharp, distinct cracks of pistols and a Matlock rifle could be heard, accopanied by the cackle of a submachine gun. They had already lost. They had simply not been able to get enough rounds off to match the fire of the task force they were facing.

Punks. They always ambushed people where they knew they had the advantage, and now they were getting the same in return.

Doesn't feel so good does it, guys?

Suddenly Shepard tapped me on the shoulder and signaled me to move ahead. I looked past him to see Behring and three marines about to advance with us.

We all moved at once, charging the right side of the building as the police kept up the suppresive fire, pinning all of the agents behind their vehicles.

We sprinted into the shadows to a service door on the right side of the building, hugging the wall while covering the door ahead of us. Shepard was right in front of me, second to the front.

Suddenly, the door was flung open and a Cerberus agent charged out, attempting to run back into the city and lose the police in the night.

His plans were cut short by a barrage of gunfire, leveling him instantly in an explosion of red.

We took up positions beside the door while Behring and another marine tossed flashbang grenades inside.

After they detonated we rushed in, covering the half empty store room we had entered from top to bottom with our rifles, ready to cut down anyone else in our path.

Behring motioned with his right hand that he would cut off any remaining agents with one of the marines. Seconds later, the matallic clang of his Eviscerator could be heard, firing his entire magazine in a matter of seconds.

If he had died, then it was a significant loss, but not one that would slow us down.

We pushed on further into the blackness, passing unmarked crates, abandoned bunks and factory parts, lying strewn across the floor.

We entered a tech room, with display monitors lying in a circle around a pair of easy chairs, obviously the command center. There were pillars and electrical wires running from floor to ceiling, giving it the appearance of an old sci fi movie.

Suddenly a burst of three shots in rapid succession thundered from a pitch black corner of the room, the only place we couldn't see.

A second three round burst erupeted before I dived behind a pillar for cover.

I fired my Revenant indiscriminantly in the direction of the fire, emptying my rifle.

I ducked again as a similar burst came my way, from a totally different direction, blackening the area where my head had been a split second before. I clutched my rifle close, hands shaking as I waited for the next burst. I turned to my left and saw the two marines lying on the floor with their rifles still in their hands. Their heads were now bloody pulps.

Near perfect headshots on two moving targets in a matter of seconds.

Kai Leng was here. He had somehow escaped the fire outside and had waited for us here. And I had no idea where he was.

That scared the shit out of me. He was the best in the business, and he had every advantage in the book over me. I was going to die in here.

I saw a motion to my left and turned. It was too late.

Kai leng was in a shooter's crouch facing me, a pistol in hand. He was smiling too. He had been waiting for this moment since I had knocked him out in the transport two days ago.

Suddenly I saw another figure barrel into him, knocking the both of them to the side.

Shepard! I ran after the two of them, who were struggling on the floor as Kai Leng attempted to reach his weapon, squirming under Shepard's weight.

Kai threw a sharp elbow into Shepard's kidney and swung his left leg around, beating Shepard in the jaw with it form his awkward position. Shepard fell aside, stunned.

Kai Leng rolled and grabbed his pistol in one swift motion, bringing it to bear on Shepard. Before he could pull the trigger, I swung my rifle like a bat, clubbing Kai in the head.

I didn't stop, bringing it down yet again, beating his pistol out of his hand as he stumbled backward.

He soon did a somersault and came to his feet, a look of pure firey rage twisting his bruised face into that of a monster before me.

I attempted to throw a right hook at his gut, but he caught it as if I were a child and threw me forward, slamming me face first to the ground.

My vision was distorted for a second as I tried to recover, my head spinning from the impact.

I tried to get up, but he held me firmly by the arm and put his boot into the small of my back, pinning me on the ground.

I heard the distinct click of a switchblade from my facedown position, and I felt him tighten his grip, ready to deliver the killing blow.

Then the weight fell off me with a large crash, and a barely audible string of curses from Kai.

I got onto my feet, seeing Shepard locked in combat with him again. He was outmatched, having no chance when Kai had both superior training and a knife at his disposal. But Shepard resorted to the simplest and most effective trick in the book: Controlling Kai's knife hand with one arm and hitting with everything he had with the other. In this case, Shepard was struggling to hold onto Kai's wrist whlie throwing out his left forearm to block his opponent's rapid kidney shots, and not succeeding.

Shepard was about two more hits from going down as I rushed in.

I grabbed Kai by the back of his shirt, pulling him away from Shepard, who had lost his grip in the same moment, and threw him into a display monitor. The reenforced glass spiderwebbed behind him. But he was already recovering, swinging his knife.

I threw up both of my forearms at once and parted his muscular arms, pulling the down to his sides. He wasn't going to be exposed like this for another second, so I did the only reasonable thing I could think of. I threw my head forward, smashing his nose with a wet pop and further damaging the screen behind him.

I was seeing stars again, but he was worse.

He brought his knee crashing into my left side and struck me on the temple with his knife, sending me to the floor, unable to move for a few precious seconds. he had me.

Somehow, Shepard filled in as if we were tag teaming and grabbed him from behind.

Kai Leng struggled and tried to knife Shepard, but Shepard had him by his right arm. A second later, he popped Kai's shoulder out of socket, forcing him to drop his knife.

Then Shepard kicked the back of his kneecap, bringing Kai to his knees. Kai howled in defiance, still trying to fight back.

Suddenly, I was on my feet and ran at the two of them.

I fought through the pain and sent a powerful kick into the left side of Kai's jaw.

As I felt the the impact of my boot on his face, I heard a tremendous pop. I stumbled as I lowered my foot, coming down on my knees facing the opposite direction.

When I willed myself to look back, Kai Leng's body was still facing me, but his head was looking up at Shepard with lifeless eyes.

I had broken his neck.

Shepard released him from his grip, before falling down himself, bleeding from a gash on his cheek and gripping his side.

I crawled beside him and fell down next to him, completely spent.

The echoes of gunfire from outside faded gradually until the only sound I could hear was our panting as we continued to lay side by side, unable to get up on our own.

I felt Shepard's hand find mine and squeeze it lightly. I squeezed back, not having the ability to do much more.

At last, Kai Leng was dead and Cerberus was wiped off Elysium for good. At last.

I heard heavy footsteps echoing down the hall, coming our direction. The figure turned the corner and ran toward us.

It was Behring.

His form materialized in the light of the display monitors. He was holding his Eviscerator by the forestock, and he was drenched in sweat. His bad haircut was matted down, somehow looking even worse now.

"Wow. Nice work fellas. He must have been a tough one." he angled to Kai Leng's body.

"You got no idea," I gasped. he helped us to our feet and led us down the hall and to the front of the building, supporting the two of us as he went. Eventually, we regrouped with the troopers and marines out front, a pair of them braking off the main crowd and fumbling through kits to find medigel for the two of us.

Behring set us down on the hood of a police cruiser, dropping into the nearest corner as soon as he did. As far as I was concerned, he could sleep for the rest of the day if he wanted to.

Anderson ran up as soon as he saw me and Shepard, looking worn out himself.

"Are you okay?"

"I'll live. Did we take any casualties?" I asked. I reached up and touched my cheek, feeling a lump on my cheek

"Only two officers are on the table. There are more wounded, but they'll be okay. What happened?" Anderson was eager for news, already planning his next move.

I thought Shepard was going to speak next, but he was still doubled over, trying to get his air back. So I filled in.

"It was Kai Leng. He ambushed us in a side room. The two marines are dead, but we managed to kill him. Hand to hand, sir."

"Wait? You two overpowered and killed him with your bare hands?" Anderson asked in disbelief.

"Yes, sir. It wasn't easy, but he's dead."

Anderson laughed. "I'll believe that when I see the body," he shook his head and walked back into the building.

The area was now covered in crime scene techs and there was a police line farther back, holding back anxious reporters and the obnoxiously colored vans that came with them.

Shepard rose into a full sitting position as a turian officer administered medigel to the both of us. He looked oddly familiar.

I saw the Mantis rifle across his back, the barrel bright red. I looked again and saw the engraving on his weapon.

_WE OWN THE NIGHT_

He grinned. "It's nice to see you two made it out alive."

"Yeah, it's nice," Shepard said through gritted teeth as the turian gave him a shot of painkiller, being careful not to overdose.

Behring rose up from his corner reluctantly, hobbling toward us. It looked like he had pulled something in his leg. He converged with Sidereaux and the two spoke in hushed voices, walking toward us.

The turian finished his duty, giving me an ice pack for my forehead as he left, not waiting for a thank you.

Sidereaux sat down beside us and nodded. "You two know what a tremendous help you've been. I'm in your debt."

Shepard shook his head. "Don't worry about it."

"Well, let Lieutenant Behring take you two back to the citadel. Anderson will be waiting for you there. That's a start."

Shepard and I shook the salarian's hand.

"It's been an honor, sir."

"No Williams, the honor is mine."

With that he was gone, disappearing into the tangle of men and equipment around the complex. Behring lead us to an unmarked cruiser and took the back roads away from the scene of the shootout, avoiding reporters. That gave me more respect for him.

Shepard and I lay in the back seat, talking about what life would be like aboard the Normandy. He was enjoying being able to tell me about the SR-2, and I was happy to listen.

"-They're some real characters, Ash. You'll get used to it after a while, but they're good people," Shepard was giving me pointers about his new ship, as exited as the circumstances allowed him to be.

Behring drove into the parking garage of the transport hub, having already scheduled a flight the the Citadel on the ride over. We hopped out, still in combat armor and sore beyond belief. Behring carried my bag, leading the way to the elevator at the opposite end of the garage. Shepard and I followed, arm in arm.

When the elevator doors closed, Behring looked away and pretend not to notice us holding hands and leaning against the door.

At last it was over.

I heard a sudden double click, freezing in place next to Shepard.

I slowly turned around.

When I did, I saw Behring standing there, his Predator aimed squarely between my eyes. _Oh my God! He was the traitor!_

Shepard lunged forward, knocking the two of them to the back of the elevator. Shepard was stronger, but Behring had more fight left in him, in addition to his gun.

Shepard knocked Behring against the console with a thud, the two of them flailing. As I reached for my gun, I realized I had taken off my weapons after the shootout. Shit.

Behring swung his left hand around, hitting Shepard squarely on the temple with his pistol, bringing the commander to his knees.

I ran at him next, but he was already on his feet and pushed his pistol into my stomach, forcing me to the other side of the elevator. I stumbled and fell back onto Shepard, the two of us collapsing in a tangle of limbs as Behring stood over us.

"Rat bastard!" I spat as I found myself once again looking down the barrel of his sidearm.

He shrugged it off as if it were anything else. "Why are you taking it so personaly, Chief? It's not that I don't like you, because I do, I'm just cleaning up the mess I created."

He spoke in a calm, detached voice. It was like he was speaking to a close friend about nothing important, like he was at lunch or something. His disregard for our lives was clear.

"I don't get it. You killed Cerberus agents," Shepard coughed, trying to get up.

Behring pushed him back down with the heel of his shoe. I held Shepard, angling so that he was behind me if Behring decided to shoot.

"You think I work for Cerberus? Nope. I'm a solo act, lovebirds. I sell to the highest bidder. But I started getting smart after I sold out the location of the hotel and Cerberus was going to kill me along with you two. And then they killed Dignam, who happened to be my friend, may he rest in peace. That was the end of it. I had to wash my hands of Cerberus for good, and now I'm free."

"You'll die before you can get off the planet," I hissed, trying to find something to fight with without catching his eye.

"I sure won't. You see, I'll be free of the police, of Cerberus, and even the Reapers, should they even exist. If it comforts you any Williams, I chose you to find Shepard because you were the best, but I'm going to change that right now. And Shepard gets to watch."

He took aim, leveling his pistol at my forehead.

Just then the elevator doors opened. Behring turned around, keeping his gun pointed at me. None of us believed what we saw.

Dignam stood in the doorway, holding a pistol in his right hand. His left shoulder and arm were covered in bandages, yet he still was wearing his shoulder holster. His right leg was covered in similar wrappings and a makeshift splint.

Both guns went off at once, thundering like field canons in the tight space.

I turned away and felt a hot red mist on the right side of my face. I looked up to see Behring's head buck backwards, smashing him into the wall. His handgun clattered to the floor beside me as he slumped to the ground, a hole drilled between his eyes. He finally came to rest in a sitting position, propped up against the wall that he had been standing against a second before.

Shepard and I looked up, seeing Dignam standing in the same position he had been in before, untouched by Behring's wild shot.

"Well, you two have a flight to catch so I'll be going."

He turned and bagan to walk away, limping slightly. That was it, he was just leaving.

Shepard stopped him. "Come with us. Tell us how the hell you're alive."

He turned instantly and followed us into the elevator. "I thought you'd never ask."


	4. Cursed with Life

**Hi all! Here's the newest chapter. No corny line about how Bioware owns everything you see here, but I do ask you for feedback. I've gotten a fair amount of hits, but I need more reviews to improve my writing in the future. **

**Enjoy!**

Mass Effect: The Faithful Departed

Dignam:

The two lovebirds were bombarding me with questions. How did you survive? How did you get here? Why are you wearing your shoulder holster over your bandages?

I waited for them to stop before delivering my answer.

"Look here, fellas. I don't remember much." That was a lie, I just wanted to keep this short. "I was shot several times, as you no doubt found out, but I was able to crawl into a service elevator. One of the managers was leaving his office right as I dropped in. He about pissed himself, but he told me that his wife was a doctor and that she could help. The last thing I told him before I passed out was not to tell anybody about me and to keep me at his house instead of a hospital."

I had rehearsed that many times, even though I wasn't lying. I just wanted it to be as simple as possible without them falling over themselves sorry for me. And I think it had worked. As a Cerberus agent, I had spent years being a compulsive liar, giving out false tells and using less of my vocabulary to trick people into believing that they had some advantage over me.

"But how did you know that we would be here?" Ashley asked.

"Before the shootout at the police station, Behring was talking to a few other officers. He told them that _Bravina_, an asari officer, was going to guard the stairwell that the agents posing as Alliance personnel entered from. Problem is that Bravina was gunned down at the hotel yesterday, and he knew it." I remembered grieving for Bravina after the escape. She had four sisters, but she was just another dead cop to the rest of the universe.

The three of us had boarded a transport, leaving Sidereaux to clean up the mess in the elevator. We were on our way to the Citadel, wishing the best to the SIU.

We had gotten a separate room from the rest of the seats in the commercial ship, posing as executives for some company. Cord-Hislop I think. That's some hardcore irony for you.

I had taken my usual place in the corner seat, arms folded. The painkiller given to me had taken effect, making me feel as good as new. The medigel was working wonders on my leg and shoulder as well, as I could almost punch somebody as hard as I could before I was shot.

"So what happened to Barrigan?" I asked. He had tried to stop them from shooting me, as his panicked shout was the last thing I heard before the wall of lead hit me.

Ashley hesitated. I knew what she was going to say before she said it based on the way she reeled from the question, as if it were automatically directed at her instead of a general query. Cerberus training had paid off.

"I... I shot him." She managed the words.

"Really? How'd he go?" I asked.

She looked at me with a bewildered expression. She obviously wasn't anywhere around Boston growing up.

"I mean what were the circumstances?" She had made me step into my detective pants just to get a question answered.

"He ran at the police firing line. See, we found out what you did with the cell phone and tracked them down to an abandoned factory. They were leaving when we got there. Barrigan... He just ran out into the open, shooting. Literally, he could have tried to run, but it's like that's how he wanted to go..." She trailed off.

I nodded. "At least he went out that way. He tried to redeem himself before the end."

I remembered him trying to stop the agents on the rooftop from killing me. I wasn't upset with Williams in the least. Barrigan needed to die, but not by my hand.

"So, what's the plan then Shepard?" I had turned to John-boy for directions, as everyone else did. If I hadn't been shot, I would have felt bad about all of the shit he puts up with.

He was sitting at the edge of the bed, hands in his lap, waiting for the question.

The room had only a single bed and some other furniture, so I called the couch automatically to avoid any awkward moments with Shepard and his Dearly Beloved during our flight. He faced me and answered. I saw for the first time how brutal the fight with Kai Leng had been, as his face was further mangled by a welt in the center of his forehead.

"Well, it looks like we're meeting up with the Council and Hackett and figuring out a plan. I don't really know, but we're going to think of a way to stop Cerberus."

"What about your crew?"

"They are on standby. I told them that we made it off Elysium, more or less, and are going to have a chat with our friends on the Presidium.

Williams nodded. "This should be interesting."

I thought about the Citadel. It was a nice place if you wanted to take your family on vacation or find illegal goods from alien suppliers, but those were the only two benefits I saw in the whole damn thing.

When I became a cop, they told me that C-Sec, for starters, is a prestigious unit that focuses on organized crime and protecting the most important individuals of the galaxy."It is the pinnacle of law enforcement and justice," my instructor had told me and thirty other eager trainees our first week of the academy. The actuality of that is that they cover up most organized crime and deal mostly with domestic issues and handle booking on the station, as most ambassadors and the like don't want investigations that leave their dirty laundry flapping in the wind. Pinnacle of law enforcement my ass.

Ever wondered why security there is so tight? The reason is because the officers have nothing better to do. I understood why Shepard's pal Garrus left.

I never told everyone else about what I really thought of such things except when asked, as not to offend anyone who believed otherwise.

After our discussion, I layed down on the couch and tried to sleep. I let my mind go completely blank and focused only on the off white of the cushion I was laying on the the blue-tinted nightlight in the hallway. But I couldn't calm down. I'm not the type to get excited easily, and find that sleeping is, in fact, the only real break from white collar assholes I will get, but I just couldn't manage it.

There were too many thoughts running through my head. The bureaucracy awaiting us on the Presidium. The future of the SIU back on Elysium. The families of the officers that had been killed.

The death of two of my closest friends in two days, both because of me.

Behring was 100% my fault, no denying it. Barrigan had been on the rooftop in the rain and the blood because of me. I hadn't been able to save him from Cerberus all those years ago. I never understood why he chose Cerberus over the police, and that was why I couldn't get it out of my mind; I didn't understand.

I finally began to drift off after what seemed like a decade lying in the ornate, overstuffed piece of furniture.

You know, it's actually kind of a farce.

We always complain about life not being fair to us, but the reality is that we end up taking everything away all by ourselves.

Elsewhere:

The Class M star burned in front of the Illusive Man, taking up the entire window. He liked it that way, with nothing else to focus on or get in his way.

His lit cigarette was down to a stub between his bony fingers, the last of his pack. Usually by the time he was ready to go to sleep, he had just finished off the last of his illegal beuties.

But today he had only been up for five hours and this was his third pack. He gazed into the sun, looking to its brilliance for an answer to the astronomical problem staring him in the face.

Shepard just wouldn't die, would he? Neither would Williams or Dignam, who had even been blown away by two of his best agents and returned to finish off the last possible operative he had, the late Lieutenant Sean Behring, right as the Illusive Man's wish of a universe without Shepard was about to come true. Not only were they still alive, the location of the Cerberus Base of Operations on Elysium had been compromised and raided, with Kai Leng and Barrigan dead as a result.

Also, investigations had been opened up on several Cerberus shell companies by detectives in the SIU. Half of them would never go anywhere or get bogged down in legal paperwork, but the rest would hit home, freezing Cerberus funds in the area. See, Elysium was built on trade: It was a planet that kept goods and money from all corners of the galaxy coming, with large amounts of this income... lost in translation. Or used by shell companies owned and operated by Cerberus. Now Cerberus would have to move large amounts of hard currency from other worlds to compensate for the loses.

But now they were traveling to the Presidium, the perfect location for an ambush. Everyone thought that Citadel Security was impenetrable, with soldiers and full surveillance and a fleet of ships prowling the viel beyond. The ugly truth is that all the fleets and firepower in the universe can be laid to waste with the proper amount of money and leverage directed at the low-income, corruptible members of C-Sec.

Oh yes, He would have his revenge on the man who had permenantly sealed the fate of the human race by denying it the technology it needed to survive.

The bitch who could have been his best agent, yet fell in love.

The cop who had turned on him and lived to tell the tale.

He finished off his cigarette with a long drag, finding comfort in knowing that his future would be secure, and that Cerberus would be spared from the coming destruction.

That was the whole point. He had been made an offer he couldn't refuse: If he killed Shepard, then the Reapers would spare all of the members of Cerberus from the destruction ahead, and he would get to remake the universe as he saw fit, free of alien tyranny.

He would save more lives than Shepard ever did.

He tapped the console on the arm of his chair, pulling up a hologram of his last surviving Elysium asset.

A man covered with bandages stood before him, at attention. His head was covered in cloth and metal cybernetics could be seen through the fabric, jutting out of his jaw like wiring for an electrical system. His face was set into a permanent scowl, as the action on Elysium had forever changed his life. Skin grafts would hide his hideous surgery, as it was performed at the nearest Cerberus medical station in a haste.

"Petrenko, it's time to finish what Kai Leng and Travis Barrigan began. Kill them. Kill them all." He was speaking to the man who had been tossed out of the sky by Ashley Williams and had fell over three hundred feet into a garbage truck, his body smashed to a pulp. But enough credits and some certified Cerberus bioengineers had fixed him up and given him muscle and adrenaline enhancements, making him stronger and faster than before.

Petrenko nodded, looking like a husk with his cybernetics in plain sight. He was pissed off beyond belief. As his first words to the doctors were,"Point me to Shepard and Williams and get the hell out of my way."

The former Spetsnaz trooper had a menacing buoy knife secured in his belt alongside a Predator handgun. He was good with knives, and good with causing pain to people, two traits that the Illusive Man valued, especially since Kai Leng was dead. Kai Leng had been the best, with Petrenko the second fiddle.

"I'm going to kill them all," he promised, walking away as he spat the words through his thick bandages.

The Illusive Man grinned briefly as he shut down the comm channel. Oh yes, the future would be very bright.

Dignam:

We exited the shuttle as soon as it touched down at the public dock, as we all wanted to get the hell away from crowds. Unfortunately, if we wanted to avoid crowds, then we shouldn't have come here in the first place.

Bustling commuters and business people on cell phones and personal data pads were bumping past each other as they walked from one area of the station to the other, oblivious to anyone else around them. Cars zipped by at speeds that I _know _good and well are above the legal speed limit in their daily trips between the Wards. I hated getting bumped in a crowd, as it was a good way to lose your wallet, cell phone, or in my case, a firearm. Why couldn't people just not steal stuff? That would make a cop's job a lot earlier.

Of course then we would just have to arrest innocent people instead...

We took a mind boggling series of elevators on our way up to the Presidium, and Williams said something about it being to signify the council's importance. And I couldn't agree more. The rides gave me a chance to slow down and think for a minute, though.

I liked Williams. I gave her a lot of shit, but she was a good soldier through and through. She had the drive to be anything she wanted and wasn't going to settle for anything less, which I can respect in the universe today. I could tell she also had a slight inferiority complex about her, but I thought it best not to ask.

"So Dignam, is this how most of your investigations pan out? With leads going _nowhere__,_" She flashed a dark grin, making me eat my own words from when I had first told her all of her data was counterfeit when she arrived on Elysium, which in my defense it was.

She also had a wicked sense of humor when she wanted to. She must have given Shepard a run for his money when they had first met.

"Actually, most investigations aren't backed by a former savior of the galaxy and his hardass ladyfriend, so leads aren't usually jumping around corners and smacking us in the face."

"So I guess it's safe to say that I'm doing your job for you," Ashley and Shepard were laughing at her latest remark.

"Maybe you should have become a cop," Shepard said it.

"I don't think you could handle it," I rattled off before I could talk some sense into myself. That was the single phrase that would get the most explosive reaction out of her. I gritted my teeth and prepared to get blown away.

_Couldn't_ handle it! Couldn't _handle_ it! You think I couldn't _handle_ it?" She was shouting from her corner of the elevator, with Shepard laughing from his. I was actually laughing too.

"Let me tell you something, copper top. I can _handle_ being a marine and saving the galaxy with Shepard! I can _handle_ politics... to a point. And I am the best person at_ handling _things that you will ever meet!"

"Actually on my crew there are some pretty-" Ashley cut Shepard off mid sentance.

"Don't talk, Shepard!" She was shouting, but doing her best not to laugh at the same time. The whole thing was a joke.

He shut up immediately, not wanting to take my place in Ashley's Rampage.

She finally stopped, her face returning to its normal color. Part from shouting and part from laughing while she did it.

Then we rode in silence, the warm fuzzies wearing off in a few moments.

Shepard coughed into his elbow.

"Couldn't handle it," he said between coughs.

I couldn't believe that he had the balls to say it.

Ashley lunged at him, hitting him in the gut while he didn't even try to avoid it. She finished by shoving him against the elevator wall, returning to her position beside him.

"The next person who says that is going to get taken to Pound-town," she declared, taking a firm stance at the center of the elevator, giggling like a little girl.

Then the ride was over.

We found ourselves in Anderson's office, with Udina and the counciller himself dressed formally waiting for us. With them was an asari. She looked young by their standards, and was dressed in what looked to be a labcoat type outfit with blue details in some areas. She was sitting at the end of the table, waiting patiently with a deceiving look of innocence on her face.

"Liara!" Shepard and Williams said her name at the same time, equally surprised at her presence. I didn't know her personally, but I heard that she was an information broker or something on Illium, another one of the many, many places I don't want to go to in the near future.

Shepard shook her hand and Williams followed suit. I took my hand off of my sidearm and extended it toward her, not wanting to forget my mannors in front of a stranger... or not wanting her to know how much of a first-rate Boston asshole I was just yet.

"It's good to see you again, Shepard. Williams, how have you been?" Her eyes were burning bright blue and were full of depth. I could guess that she had been through a lot more, or knew a lot more, than her young voice and shy mannerisms conveyed. To be an information broker, you had to be a good liar, so I guess she was a pro.

"Not bad. Just busy," she answered, not laughing like I expected she would.

"Good. Busy keeps people like us out of trouble. And you are Sergeant Dignam, aren't you? Elysium SIU, right?"

Damn. She was really good. She wasn't taking any chances coming here, was she?

I could do nothing but nod at her.

"Liara, why are you here?" Shepard asked.

Anderson spoke up. "She has valuable intel for our mission, Shepard. She could be the one to lead us straight to the Illusive Man."

Ashley:

Well, I was certainly surprised to find T'Soni here. I had heard about her being an information broker on Illium, so I was grateful for information. She and I are polar opposites, though. We never connected on the Normandy and never contacted each other afterward. I had sent her a message once, but she never got back to me on how she was settling in at her new career.

Or about how Shepard was going to be resurrected by Cerberus.

I tried not to let my own feelings of bitchiness and distrust get in the way. But she had a nasty habit of only telling the half truth unless pressed, or unless it benefited the United States of Liara directly.

"So what have you got, Doctor?" I asked.

"Take a seat, Chief. I'll show you in a moment."

We nodded at Anderson and Udina, clad in formal suits for their jobs here on the Presidium. It looked like they hadn't slept since last time we saw them, which was only yesterday. Their suits were crumpled like they had been in somebody's pocket for a week and they themselves didn't look much better. I heard somewhere that the sheer amount of bullshit in politics makes those involved look a hundred years older than they actually are, and it was looking to be a true statement.

It suddenly occured to me that they had probably not told anyone about Elysium or Shepard being back on the grid.

We all took seats around the table, with me sliding in next to Shepard without skipping a beat. Everybody pretended not to notice.

Liara, Anderson, and Udina were up front, wanting a good view of what was happening. Shepard and I were behind them, so I had a pretty good view myself. Dignam stood in the background as usual. I could never figure out why he did that, but I did know that he kept his arms folded to keep one resting on his weapon.

I did an exit check before leaning back in the executive's chair. First the windows, then the door, which was locked, and then the corners, so that nobody could hide out in the shadows without us detecting it. A force of habit, you could say.

"As Shepard may already know, the Illusive Man is a recluse, living near a Class M star inside of a very secure space station," Liara began, pulling up a star chart on Anderson's viewing screen, with the class M stars glowing like red nean in a sea of yellow. This reminded of me of the theatre-like room of the SIU, only much smaller and less crowded.

"Yes, but he changes the location of his base every time someone boards it," Anderson stopped Liara. "He is paranoid about his personal base being discovered by anyone, especially the Alliance."

"And there are more than a few Class M stars in the universe," Udina piped up. Wow, they werent' going to give her a chance, were they?

"With all due repect, sir. Liara didn't come here unprepared," I spoke in Liara's defense. Everybody looked surprised at my action, but I didn't think much of it.

"Thank you, Chief. With access to some... privaleged information, I narrowed it down to the system where the a Illusive Man is currently hiding out."

She tapped a button on her personal datapad, which now was a miniature version of what we were seeing in front of us. The camera zoomed in on the uppermost portion of the Galaxy Map.

The Valhallan Threshold. It was a system on the very rim of the Galaxy, and not heavily populated, either.

"Hey, that's where the Migrant Fleet was stationed a few weeks ago!" Shepard burst out of his chair, pointing at the screen frantically.

"You mean that the Illusive Man is trying to get in contact with the Quarians?" Udina asked.

"No," Anderson dismissed it with a wave of his hand. "The Illusive Man has been keeping an eye on the Quarians for years, as he seems to have some fascination with their ships," he told us. "He probably is just observing, as he now lacks the manpower for a possible conflict." I remembered the number of men lost during the shootout on Elysium.

I had no idea how he knew all of that, but I was grateful for the insight.

"How long will it take us to zero in on the location of the Illusive Man's station?" Shepard asked.

"There are a very limited number of star systems that could conceal an object of that size," Liara mused, running the options through her head.

"Wait," I interrupted. "How do we know that his lair is a space station?" I must have missed something.

"We know because that's the only way he could get that close to a star and not be incinerated," Shepard told me.

I decided to stop asking questions, as I was the only one out of the loop. Shepard must have met with him during his time with Cerberus, and I had no idea how Anderson and Liara got their intel, but I had decided to just go with the flow for now.

"Councillor, I am presenting you with valuable intel. Your men could find the exact coodinates in under a-"

"That's not gonna happen," Dignam cut Liara off from the other end of the room. "Cerberus is going to have eyes and ears all over your office, Councillor. Thank you for the intel, Doctor, but we need you to also pinpoint the station itself. Nobody else can know what transpired here."

"Why can't you just take it to some of your tech specialists?" Liara asked the question to Anderson, promptly ignoring Dignam.

I decided it would be safe to speak up. "Beause everyone outside this room, every person of every race could potentially be an Agent." Everyone looked at me with grave expressions.

Liara nodded. "Give me a few hours, and you'll have what you need."

Elsewhere:

Petrenko watched from his post atop the hanar embassy through a pair of 20x zoom binoculars as the meeting was concluded. He had been waiting for six hours watching for them to arrive and begin the meeting. Petrenko could tell that they were looking for the Illusive Man, but they would never find him. Not in the Valhallan Threshold, the area was simply too large and unexplored to zero in on a single space station. They were in the right system, but not for long.

Soon he would inform the Illusive Man that they had narrowed it down the Valhallan Threshold.

Petrenko laughed wickedly. Shepard thought he was so smart didn't he? He would use the Normandy's stealth systems to mount an attack on the Observatory, thinking he had the advantage. Only the Illusive Man wasn't foolish enough not to lodge a tracking beacon deep inside the drive core of Shepard's SR2. The engineers would never find it during repairs, as they weren't suicidal enough to go sticking their appendages inside that Eezo-powered monster of an engine.

He winced. It hurt to laugh now, too. Painkillers were offered to him, but none would take fucking effect when he wanted them to.

Petrenko had a good view of the star chart from the slanted rooftop about 600 meters away, but he couldn't hear what they were saying. The Illusive Man had denied his request for audio surveillance inside the office, saying that he didn't want to spoil what resources he had left.

The asari retreated to the terminal, typing in calculations at a dizzying pace. The lovebirds stepped into the elevator to begin their descent to the lakeside. A romantic walk? Cute-sie.

The cop was speaking to Anderson and Udina in an urgent voice, probably giving them tips about how to infiltrate the station. He had been an Agent once, but he was too weak-willed to finish his duty, choosing instead to bug out and retreat to the police to earn forgiveness or some sentimental bullshit like that. Anderson was tough, but Petrenko could tear him apart when the time came, he had decided. Udina was no problem at all, with no formal training or weapons on his person.

He wasn't sure about Shepard and Williams, though. Shepard had a knack for surviving impossible odds and Williams had qualified as an N7 after saving the Citadel, making them formidable opponents. As long as he separated the two in combat, then he could kill them.

Dignam had a limited amount of training, but also had a knack for surviving the impossible.

He stepped away from his post and walked back towards the service entrance, removing his signal jammer as he went.

Petrenko was seething, clenching his jaw to control the spurts of pain that now plagued him every waking moment.

Soon, they would feel his hurt. They would know what it was like to be so blinded by pain every moment of the day that your only solace was to make others feel the same way.

He exited into an alleyway, scrubbed clean by under payed Citadel workers every day at six. Petrenko had chosen to depart five minutes before, letting them wash away evidence of his presence for him. He exited and pulled a formal jacket on over his grey pants and matching t-shirt, which were intentionally the same color of the roof he had been spying from.

Oh yes, the future would be very bright.

**It's not over yet... Thanks for reading!**


	5. The Departed

Mass Effect: The Faithful Departed

Shepard:

The cool blue water rippled as our feet dipped into the Presidium Lake.

Ash and I had taken our shoes off and were side by side near at the edge of the lake, overlooking commuters and businessmen going about their lives. I'm pretty sure we were't allowed to do this, but I really didn't care and neither did Ash, who was beaming beside me. We sat, her left arm draped over my shoulder for an eternity, imbibing the breathtaking view before us. I was enjoying the opportunity to finally get some peace and quiet after two years of my life being fucking psychotic, with geth and reapers attacking to Citadel, then Collectors abducting humans.

It was good that the galaxy would stay saved for five whole minutes, even if our friends were worried and scrambling to search for answers in places they didn't want to be.

I never wanted to leave my spot by the side of the lake. It was so peaceful here and quiet, unlike the Wards surrounding the Presidium. I was beginning to understand why the politicians didn't want this peace disturbed more than they wanted to help other people. Messing a moment like this up should be a capital offense.

If it were, Anderson would be thrown in the stockade, because he cleared his throat from behind us, getting our attention. He looked like a stern father who didn't think highly of two kids together by the lake at a time like this.

"Shepard, I want you to know that we are close to locating the Illusive Man. You two should come inside, there's plenty of _space_ there."

He turned and walked, unimpressed at our display of affection.

Ash and I turned to each other and shrugged before getting onto our feet. We slid our boots back on and followed Anderson back up the stairs. He kept a brisk pace, braking for nothing and no one; more specifically, not letting Ash and I have time to savor the moment. But we were still smiling.

For the first time in my life, I really didn't care what Anderson thought.

We passed the reception desk, and I noted the lack of a young woman peering over the edge, waiting to greet us. In fact, the room was totally empty, cushioned chairs vacant and no maintenance workers in sight. It was an unusual sight here on the Presidium

Warning bells went off in my head as we passed into the short hallway to the elevator. Something was wrong. I could just feel it in my gut.

I grabbed Ash by the shoulder and pulled my weapon from the waist band of my civilian cargos. It was comforting to know that I had a pistol in my hand, the smooth grip tucked firmly into my palm.

She followed suit, pulling back the bolt on her Predator in advance.

"Captain!" I shouted at Anderson, desperate to warn him.

Suddenly, a flash bang grenade detonated right in front of us. When I say right in front, I mean right fucking in front of me. Saying that it was two meters away would be generous.

I hated these things. The flash burning white hot in my eye sockets and the boom reverberating in my ear drums, it was impossible to recover from in time once you were hit with one.

On instinct, I let go of Ash and dived back the way I had come, trying to break up the attackers' field of fire on the narrow hallway, anticipating the fire that would come next. I had learned that from Ellyson, only in many more words.

The gun was knocked from my hand and a sharp kick landed in my kidney in the same instant. I fell to the floor, as taking yet another kidney shot form a Cerberus Agent in a few short days was too much to take.

I couldn't see, the white lights were still dancing in front of my eyes. I heard struggling in front of me. Whoever it was had already moved on to Ash and Anderson.

I hauled myself up, using the wall as support. God, did that hurt! I couldn't see six inches in front of my face, so there was no way I would find my weapon in time.

I threw myself in the direction of the scuffling, trying to give them some time.

I smacked into somebody, sending the two of us to the floor. I landed on top of him with a thud, pinning his right arm down on the floor. I hope it wasn't Anderson.

It sure wasn't Anderson, as a blade danced in front of me, the hot air of the swing only a centimeter from my face.

I jumped backward, getting out before he could take another swing. I staggered for a moment, trying to regain my balance after getting "flashed" at close range.

My vision cleared suddenly, with my attacker coming into view. It was Petrenko.

Somehow he had survived being tossed out of the transport on Elysium and had come back for more.

Only Petrenko had changed. Where his right cheek had been, there was now a metal jaw and several prosthetic moving parts, hideously disappearing behind the bulging flesh that remained on his face. He was holding a buoy knife, wearing his closest approximation of a grin.

"Did you miss me, soldier-man?"

What happened next was unbelievable.

He jumped at me, only instead of landing in front of me, he sailed over my head, slashing downward in an arc as he did.

I felt a searing pain in my shoulder as his buoy knife clipped it, drawing blood.

Before I could recover, he threw a kick at my stomach, sending me backward across the floor. Lights and stars did laps in front of me as I came to a halt ten feet away.

He was impossibly strong. And he was fast. Cerberus had made him better in every way, and there was no way I could take him without a weapon.

I looked up to see him grinning with his horribly deformed face looking at me on the floor, as if disappointed.

"Oh, I'm gonna enjoy this, John-boy" his heavily accented monotone echoed in my still-ringing ears. I turned to see Ash and Anderson down on the floor, not moving. There was a large crimson spatter on the wall to match the unmoving pair of bodies lying on the ground.

No. It couldn't be.

She hadn't deserved this. Ash came back to rescue _me. _She shouldn't be the one to pay the price for my freedom. When I had met her, she was so young and eager to fight for what she believed in, even though what she was fighting for had never believed in her.

Petrenko stepped toward me, gaining momentum as he held the buoy knife in front of him, spinning it around and around to intimidate me.

I wasn't scared anymore. He might be enhanced in every way, but I wasn't going to stop until one of us was dead.

I ran directly at him at full speed, ignoring his knife as it arced all around me. Ash hadn't been intimidated by him and neither was I.

He finally swung, the bloodstained knife coming at me from an upward angle, trying to hit me in the throat.

He might have been impossibly fast, but I had already dropped down and aiming for his stomach.

My full weight slammed into his gut, taking the two us to the ground. Petrenko might have been tough, but he didn't weigh any more than he did three days ago.

I brought a right hook into his jaw, snapping his head sideways. He didn't even blink, he just turned his head back so that he was facing me, his metal teeth with blood seeping through the cracks of the chrome metal brackets, and threw the same punch I had hit him with.

His fist struck my cheek like a dumptruck, throwing me from a kneeling position to my feet in the same instant.

He jumped onto his feet, unphazed by my attack. His cold blue eyes were like arctic ice as they saw right through me. He was panting, and it sounded oddly like the Human Reaper I had killed.

That was the moment when I finally understood it. He was a _machine_ now, not a _man_. His body looked vaguely human, with four limbs and apposable thumbs. But on the inside he was all clockwork, like a cyborg creature that you see in Sci-Fi movies, holding no place in his world or the world of machines. He was an outcast if he survived this.

Revenge was the only thing he had left to enjoy in this world.

He lunged again, only this time there was no way to avoid it.

Petrenko threw me into the wall, the glass frame of a human painting shattering behind me as I hit it with a bone jarring crash. I opened my eyes in time to see him stabbing at my chest with the knife.

I threw both of my arms down in an X, trying to block his strike.

His forearm split the two of mine, leaving me wide open for another hit. There was no time to move, no time to try and block his next hit.

I did the only thing I could, grabbing Petrenko by the front of his gray shirt and bringing my forehead crashing into his nose.

His head was bucked backward by my sudden hit, as his nose was the only part of him not reinforced by muscle and bone enhancements.

Before he could react, I deflected his blade with my right hand, the force of his stab burying the knife in the sheet metal behind me.

My left arm connected with his jaw, right where he had the mechanical parts exposed. It hurt like hell as my hand hit nothing but metal and plastic, crunching the alloy holding his face together.

He screamed in pain, sounding like a Collector drone with a mechanical twang to his voice.

My left hand was bleeding, I could feel the dark red blood seeping in between my fingers, forming a pool in the center of my fist. But he had been hurt more, so I hit him again with the same hand.

I hit him again and again and again, sending chips of expensive prosthetic clattering across the floor with spurts of blood and spit as he reeled backward, unable to control the hurt.

Suddenly he struck me again, sending me back into the wall. I fell to my knees as he stood over me, blood pouring from his busted jaw, pieces hanging loose from their brackets.

He was about to strike, but a series of shots thundered in the hallway. Petrenko was thrown sideways, away from the elevator to Anderson's office.

I looked in the direction of the gunfire.

Liara and Dignam stood in the hallway, pistols raised.

Petrenko's boots squeaked as he slid backward across the tiled floor, struggling to gain purchase. A second later he stopped, with four holes in his chest.

But he was still standing and ready for more. My god, what had Cerberus done to him?

Before they could fire again, Petrenko ran directly at a wall, kicking off of it at the last second, propelling himself to the opposite wall, where he performed the same maneuver, launching his body away from the shooters.

Liara and Dignam fired several times, none of the bullets hitting Petrenko, who had moved at lightspeed out of the line of fire.

"God damn hamster!" Dignam shouted. "Come here you little rascal!" he started running after Petrenko with Liara in tow.

I looked on the floor for a weapon, finding a pistol lying next to Ashley. It was hers. It didn't feel right to take it.

No time to get fussy. I barreled after them, running through the waiting area and down two flights of stairs in pursuit.

I could see Liara's jacket trailing behind her, a white streak as she ran out of the building. Dignam's holster formed a brown X across his back, providing me with someone to follow until I regained a visual on Petrenko.

I burst outside, waving my handgun to ward off nosy onlookers and pedestrians. They were thick in front of me, gathered from the lure of an emergency that could spice up their boring lives. However, they soon cleared as they realized that they were about to become part of the emergency, with a deformed madmen was being pursued by an asari, a cop, and a dead Spectre all at once.

A C-Sec officer pulled out his service sidearm. He was a turian, and probably had never had to use it before.

"Stop!" he shouted at Petrenko.

Before he could take his safety off, Petrenko had jumped onto a pillar and vaulted around the turian and pressed his knife against his throat. He didn't slid the young turian's neck, but he rather held the officer between himself and us. This was turning into a standoff.

He snatched up the turian's gun as if he were taking it from a child, aiming it at me while holding him firmly in place with his blade.

He was as crazy as ever, blood still pouring from his mouth as he screamed at me.

"COME ON SHEPARD! SHOOT ME NOW, SOLDIER MAN!" his metallic voice echoed throughout the Presidium, taunting me.

I had a choice: Shoot him and risk hitting the Turian, or try to talk him down.

I weighed the options.

I had no doubt in my mind that he would be able to move before I pulled the trigger with his fast reflexes.

It would be equally impossible to stop him using words. He had nothing to lose, and if there is one thing I have learned; you can never reason with somebody who has nothing to lose, somebody who has no future or cause left to fight for. Petrenko _wanted_ to die right here, but not before he killed me.

And he wanted it to happen in front of everyone.

"Petrenko! Put him down!" I shouted. "This is between me and you!"

"What's the matter? Your moral code getting in the way? You know what you need to do!" he was laughing as he said it, knowing I had too much heart to pull the trigger.

"That's the difference between people like you and Dignam and people like me and the Illusive Man. People like us do what needs doing when it needs to happen. You people try to prove that you're better like that somehow matters!" he motioned around with his gun, pointing to the fracas around the Presidium, indicating that he wasn't afraid to do whatever he needed to.

"Petrenko! If you touch that officer, I'll kill you!" Dignam shouted. Dignam must have felt some connection to the hostage, because they were both cops caught up in something that they should have never gotten involved in.

Liara caught my eye by forming a ball of biotic energy behind her back. We exchanged glances. I knew what she was going to do.

It was going to be fast and dangerous, and I really hoped Dignam would catch on in time.

Suddenly, she threw a ball of blue energy at Petrenko and his hostage. Instinctively, he put the hostage farther in front of himself, but that was a mistake.

The dark energy arced left and hit the wall behind where they were standing. Waves of blue energy erupted from the wall she had hit with a thunderous pop.

Petrenko was tossed in our direction, taking the full force of the impact and protecting his hostage in the same instant.

He flew forward, facedown, and slid right at me. He screamed in surprise as he came to a halt at my feet. And I mean right at my feet, too. He couldn't have been more than twelve inches away from the front of my boot.

Suddenly he was down in front of me, and I had the weapon this time.

He just froze there for a couple of seconds, not sure of what to do.

Then he grabbed his knife and looked up, his eyes burning red as he was about to lunge. When he looked at me, I saw nothing in his eyes. I saw only the look of a broken man. Petrenko was at the end and he knew it. He reared back and prepared to jump at me.

I lowered my gun and shot him through the eye, silencing the madman forever.

Ashley:

The single gunshot rang in my ears.

My eyes snapped open, seeing the off white of the human embassy ceiling upon waking up. The last thing I remembered was the flash of white and a boot slamming into my forehead.

I sat up and looked around, seeing that the once well-decorated hallway full of bullet holes and several busted picture frames struggling to cling to the walls.

Someone had thrown a serious party in here.

I heard a moan behind me.

"Anderson!"

"Oh my god!" I shouted. I kneeled over my former CO. His dress jacket was stained deep red from top to bottom. He had been stabbed several times by whoever had attacked us, the wounds going from his stomach all the way up to his shoulders.

Then I remembered Petrenko ambushing us on our way upstairs. He was the attacker. But he was gone, and I had to help Anderson.

I pressed both of my hands against his chest, providing pressure for his wounds. His shirt and jacket were in tatters from the slashes and quick strikes by the Russian agent.

It wasn't the quick and clean type of stabbing you see in movies, it was bloody and frightening. With bullet wounds you had a pretty good idea of how bad it was judging by where it hit, but you could never tell with blades. The only way to find out how bad it was is by trying to stop the bleeding yourself, and even then it looked bleak.

"Someone help!" I shouted. I could barely contain the spurts of blood coming out of him as it was, and if I left to go get help he would be done for. He was trying to talk, the blood welling in his throat and choking out his speech as he did.

"Don't speak, Captain. Save your strength," I whispered to him. I had never seen anyone lose this much blood and live to talk about it before, not in all my years as a marine. Anderson was a fighter, so that had to mean something. But he was old, and worn out from a military career and a political job, so he had probably had about all he could take.

Suddenly, the elevator reopened.

I looked up in time to see Udina running toward me, a medical kit in hand. He looked terrified.

He kneeled down next to me and handed me the kit, not trusting his lack of skills at a time like this.

He was a lifesaver, arriving just in time to save Anderson.

I administered medigel to his wounds, being careful not to overdose and send him into shock. I wrapped the bandages around his body, using up almost the entire role to cover up his stab wounds, the wrappings getting damp and sticky in my hands. I lifted my head to shout at Udina to call for help, but he already was running out of the building, yelling for a doctor.

I had no idea how long I had my hands pressed against Anderson to try and stop the bleeding, but it seemed like an eternity before Liara ran up and began to provide professional aid for him. I had no idea that she was this type of doctor, but I wasn't going to question the blessing either. She knew exactly what to do, too. For the first time in her life, she didn't hesitate or stop and ask questions. She just did what she needed to do.

Eventually, we moved Anderson to a hospital on the Presidium. It was a hospital made for white collar people who brought home white collar paychecks, judging by the service Anderson was given by a team of doctors. Even with all that in his favor, I was still worried about him. My clothes were soaked with blood, and that was just a portion of the amount he had lost from Petrenko's blade.

I sat in a plastic chair outside of the room, soaked in red and totally out of control. I had no idea what was happening anymore, but it had to stop, soon.

Suddenly, a pile of fresh fatigues landed in my lap. I looked up to see Shepard standing there with a hollow look on his face.

"You should get changed, Ash."

"I want to know how he is first," I was on my feet, desperate for an answer.

"Liara just checked in with the doctors. And... he may not survive the night."

I hung my head. "No, that can't be right." I couldn't believe it. Anderson was made of steel. He was a legend in the Alliance, and legends weren't supposed to die off of the battlefield in some hallway at the hands of a terrorist. They were supposed to die in glory, or retire in old age and raise kids of their own.

David Anderson wasn't meant to die like this.

"I'm sorry Ash, but there's nothing we can do."

That was the moment I ran off to the bathroom and locked myself inside, unable to face reality. I don't know how long I sat in the corner, afraid to step outside, but it must have been a long time before my trance was broken by a knock on the door.

"Yeah, I'm in here."

"It's Dignam. Are you okay? Shepard's looking all over for you."

For once his voice didn't carry a sarcastic undertone or have a facetious remark waiting around the corner for me to walk into.

"Yeah, I'm coming. Tell him I'll be there in five."

"Sure thing chief," he answered before walking away.

I sighed. It was time to get back to work.

I made my way to Anderson's room, clad in fresh Alliance fatigues with my pistol clipped into my belt, ready for action.

The three of them were waiting outside. Shepard and Liara were speaking in hushed voices, hunched over in their chairs. Dignam stood back against the wall, favoring his left leg as he leaned back.

"Ash, come closer." Shepard spoke in a grave and urgent tone. "I believe that we have found the Illusive Man."

At that, my eyes nearly burst out of their sockets in surprise. What had taken the Alliance over twenty years had taken Liara only a couple of hours to accomplish.

"When are we going in?"

"Immediately. He will change the location of the base within six hours, after he has heard of Petrenko's death," Liara explained. It always frustrated me how she seemed to know everything light years before the rest of us did. Then again, she had spent eighty years of her unnaturally long life in libraries and classrooms.

That kind of torture would have killed me.

"All right, fellas. Lets bounce," I said as Shepard led us out the front doors. I felt bad leaving Anderson here, but staying and worrying myself sick wouldn't help any him out any either.

I donned my combat armor in the cramped elevator, feeling the plates snap into place and the kinetic barriers hum to life.

It suddenly occurred to me that this was the first fight with Cerberus agents I would actually have my full compliment.

Shepard and Liara also put their armor on, struggling in the tight space. Shepard was slow because he was sore and Liara because she hadn't done it in a while.

Dignam powered up his kinetics and unsnapped his holster, keeping his outfit as is.

"Are you sure you're ready to do this?"

My question was directed at Dignam, who had been turned into Swiss cheeze the day before, but it applied to everyone.

Liara's biotics were good, but she was probably out of practice. And Shepard had gotten the tar beat out of him by Cerberus, but then again so had I.

"I'll be just fine, sweet pea."

First-rate Boston asshole.

"Really? Because last time you kind of got your ass kicked."

"I'm good, sister."

"Are you sure?" Liara asked. "Who are you, anyway?"

"I'm the guy who does the investigating around here, T'Soni. You must be that other guy."

I ignored him. "Sergeant Dignam, our SIU escort, apparently."

"I'll be fine, Chief Williams," Liara spoke in her dreamy voice.

"So what have you been up to anyway, T'Soni?" I asked the question casually, trying not to pry. I remembered her losing her mother on Noveria. It seemed like a lifetime ago, but the past does have its way of haunting us now and again.

"I have been doing quite well for myself, thank you. It is an honor to be fighting with you and Shepard again."

Shepard spoke up. "Yeah... She just got a new job, too."

"Where?"

"I... Inherited the position of the Shadow Broker."

"You what?" I demanded. Liara? A Shadow Broker? I didn't see that one coming.

"I'm not even gonna ask," Dignam said from his corner of the elevator.

"So what are you going to do once this is over, Chief?" she asked, her deep blue eyes were lit up with curiosity.

"I'm going with Shepard and his new crew. We're going after the Reapers again. You interested?" I didn't care for Liara when I served with her, but she had grown on me somehow. Now I kinda liked her.

Not that I would ever admit that under anything less than pain of death.

"No. It has been decided that I will remain at the base, providing information as you go."

"She'll be a great help once the war begins," Shepard added.

Then he turned to Dignam. "So what are you gonna do?"

Suddenly he started laughing hysterically, all of his smug detachment disappearing in an instant.

"What's so funny?" Shepard asked, a smile playing at his lips. When Shepard smiled he looked like a goofball, but that made me love it even more.

"I think I'm just gonna drive off into the sunset, Shepard. Thank you." He sighed.

"What about your job?" I asked.

"Well, I was given the choice of returning to the SIU immediately or losing my job, so there you have it."

He said it so nonchalantly that it was scary.

"Wait, Sidereaux fired you for helping us?"

"Yup. I told him to go have intercourse with himself after he said that the mission wasn't worth dying over. So I think losing my job is set in stone."

The elevator ride was just finishing. I racked my Avenger and clipped it across my back, feeling the metal collapse and fit snugly into a crook in my armor.

Showtime.

Shepard:

Soon after our ride we boarded an Alliance shuttle stashed in a warehouse in the wards.

It was a thing of beauty, with active camouflage armor plating and a virtually invisible energy signature.

If the Normandy had a kid, this thing would be it.

The four of us boarded the shuttle and took up seats in the cramped troop compartment.

Ash and I were _likethis _close together_, _with Liara sitting in the pilot's chair and Dignam in the corner, only a few feet away despite his squirming to get some distance between us and him.

"We're almost there," Liara's daydreamy voice chirped over the loudspeaker.

"Why did she use that?" Ash asked. "She could have just leaned back a little and whispered and we would have heard her in this tin can."

I laughed. That was exactly what I needed right now.

Everyone was strangely silent. And nobody had to ask why.

I had lead my whole team through the Collector Base and gotten out alive, but this scared me more than anything.

I knew for a fact that the Illusive Man was smarter than the Collectors, at least when it came to security measures. He had been putting up new layers of protection and training more men for years, preparing for a time exactly like this one: A bunch of fools thinking that we have a chance at taking him down once and for all.

"We're at the base now, "Liara whispered, her delicate hands coaxing the stealth ship closer to the looming Observatory ahead.

Finally. The Illusive Man loved being close to stars for some reason. Maybe they reminded him of himself: Zapping anything that got too close and always looming in the distance. He was an old man, and he would eventually die out in a blaze of glory just like the stars he constantly gazed upon.

He would die alright.

The Pack-Of-Chewing-Gum-Of-A-Shuttle slid up to an empty airlock and clicked into place, providing us with a fast and stealthy entrance.

"Okay, how do we get past security without the Man venting the airlocks on us?" Ash asked. "His personal quarters are separate from the rest of it, I'll bet. That might be his first move."

"He would kill his own men to save himself. Guaranteed," Dignam said. Funny. I'd have to ask him how he knew so much about Cerberus someday.

"Well at least we'll die fighting, huh?" Ash joked, her eyes twinkling with life.

"Oh yeah, that's comforting," Liara rolled her eyes." I might have some surprises for him. Compliments of the Shadow Broker."

She leapt to the computer and began frantically tapping keys. Text boxes and lines of code flashed in front of me as I watched, but even watching her do it couldn't help me understand what she was doing.

Finally, she smacked the Enter key in satisfaction, finishing her hack.

"Security has been handled," she announced, grabbing her Tempest and flicking the safety off.

"Get some!" Ash shouted in excitement, pulling out her rifle.

We exited through the narrow airlock into a wide hallway beyond.

The whole place was spotless, not a speck of dust was anywhere to be found. All surfaces were like mirrors, casting our own images back at us as we proceded deeper into the station.

My Avenger was raised, sweeping across the corridor as we moved silently to the end of hallway, where two identical paths veered off in opposite directions.

"I'll take Ash and cover left," I whispered. Dignam and Liara nodded in agreement, starting off in the other direction.

"If you come under fire, then get back to the shuttle and cover the exit. Give us five minutes, and if we're not there before then, leave. Just leave."

"You know I ain't leaving without you, but I'll just go with it. I really don't have the energy for an argument, Shepard."

Dignam flashed his sly grin before disappearing with Liara.

Ash and I picked up the pace and came to another intersection. Three symmetrical hallways in three separate directions.

We exchanged glances, trying to decide which way to go. Just as we were about to agree on a route, heavy footsteps thundered in the hallway.

Cerberus guards. Four of them approaching fast, still unaware of our presence. The Illusive man must have rolling patrols going through his domain all day every day.

Paranoid bastard.

That was about to change.

I looked down the sights of my rifle, prepared to catch them with a burst of gunfire as they rounded the corner. Ash did the same.

After they rounded the corner, Cerberus uniforms spotless and rifles cradles in their hands, we opened fire.

I sprayed indiscriminately in their direction, knowing that every one of my bullets would catch them. Their formation was too tight for close quarters combat like this.

Suckers.

Their steely glances and squarely set jaws disappeared as they realized that we had them.

The gunshots were deafening in the corridor, bullets flying at the quartet of thugs.

They were literally ripped apart before any of them could get a shot off, splashes of red erupting from every part of their bodies. They did a terrifying dance as they stumbled and fell into a heap of bodies in front of us.

"We have to hurry!" I shouted.

Ash and I began running down the hallway, forcing our battered bodies to cooperate for just a few more minutes.

We rounded a corner. A woman in a tight skirt stood there, looking terrified. She was pretty and well built, which was probably why she was on the station in the first place.

I hesitated, keeping my finger on the trigger. She didn't have a weapon, so I wasn't sure if it was necessary to kill her.

Then Ash fired, dropping the young woman to the floor.

I glared at her, not believing what she had done. Ash pointed back to the body.

I looked back, seeing a cut down Katana shotgun in the woman's left hand, safety off and ready to fire. She must have been about to draw it and kill me. How had I missed that?

I nodded thanks and continued running.

I heard gunfire reverberating at the other end of the station with a burst of biotic energy.

A second later, an explosion rocked the Observatory, throwing Ash and I off of our feet and onto the floor, hard.

I tasted blood. I spat out red, emptying my mouth of the foul taste.

Liara must have overloaded something important, because the Observatory began to move.

Literally, the station began to _fall _one way. A stabalizer must have been knocked out.

We hit the wall of the corridor, falling flat on our backs as we did.

What the hell did they destroy? Whatever it may have been, the station was seriously crippled from losing it.

Then the gravity shifted again, dropping the two of us on what used to be the ceiling.

I felt the air rush from my lungs as I hit.

"This shit is getting old!" Ash grunted, rising to her feet. "Let's go, Skipper."

She offered a hand and we ran across the ceiling, avoiding the lights jutting out from under our feet. This was a messed up situation.

We continued the direction we had been going, passing a guard with his head buried in the remains of a data terminal. Sparks of electricity shot out around him, continuing to fry his already-dead body.

Two more burly Agents were lying on their backs in the middle of our path, necks twisted at impossible angles.

I tried not to look at the disturbing sight we leaped over them in our quest to find the Illusive Man.

We came to a door, solid sheet metal with a single access panel in the centre.

I looked around the edges of the door. It wasn't opening up without anything less than the Normandy's main gun.

Ashley slammed her Avenger against the door. "God damn it! We were so close!" she shouted, her spark of life dying in an instant.

"We haven't come this far to stop now! There must be a way around!" I shouted, but I knew she was right.

"There is no way around! The Man has locked himself inside, and I doubt he forgot to turn all of the locks on!"

Suddenly, the station lurched again.

I curled into a ball, prepared to fall back to the floor. And I did.

This time I was ready for it, tucking and rolling as I hit the ground and rising to my feet in one motion. Ash was already on her feet and ready to run by the time I had gotten my bearings.

Then the alarm system went apeshit, literally.

Warning bells screeched and flashing red strobe lights came to life in the same instant.

When I looked back at the door, it was unlocked. The control panel glowed a bright green in the flashing red backdrop.

No way. Not in heaven or hell could our luck be that good.

I didn't hesitate. I smacked the panel and charged inside, Ash right on my heels.

Inside the mastermind's liar didn't hold many surprises for me. I had already seen most of it through our holochats.

A single chair sat in the middle, empty. Beside it was an advanced console, now dormant, and an ashtray with the butt of the last cigarette still smoking. The bright blue star dominated the massive window at the end of the room, casting a blue light to contrast the red.

The door suddenly closed behind us, leaving Ash and I in the middle of the open, the sun our only way of seeing what lie ahead.

I looked back and forth, my rifle moving with my sight. I knew he was still in here.

Suddenly I heard a loud pop from behind me. I dived for cover before spinning around to face the monster.

But all I saw was Ashley Williams crumpling to the floor.

I ignored my instinct to run and hide and grabbed her before she hit the ground, holding her in my arms one last time.

Her warmth was just beginning to fade, her sweet scent lingering as her eyes began to close for eternity.

"NOOOOOOOOOOO!" I screamed, tears flowing down my cheeks now. No, this wasn't how it was supposed to happen. This wasn't how she was meant to go. She was supposed to retire a decorated soldier with a family, not for me. Never for anything but herself.

The Illusive Man stepped out of the shadows, holding a high powered pistol in his right hand.

"She was a good choice, Shepard. You two were made for each other, but it was never meant to last."

His words echoed in my head. He was a million miles away, his words were whispers prying at my thoughts.

"Shepard, I have felt a lot of emotions in my lifetime. Many feelings, both depressing and incredible. Poor Ashley-"

"Don't you speak her name!" I shouted, refusing to let go of Ash. "You can't feel anything! You don't have a heart." I didn't have the energy to grab my pistol. I didn't have the energy to do anything but watch Ashley's life fade away in my arms.

"Many feelings," he continued. "But no emotion has left me feeling quite so _dead_ on the inside as being in_ love_." He spat the words out like poison at me, keeping his Phalanx at his side.

Suddenly Ash moved.

The Illusive Man couldn't see it, but I saw her move. I swear to god that her arm twitched.

She squeezed my hand ever so gently before letting it fall onto her pistol, looking as if she had gone limp.

I saw her take the safety off.

I set her down and rose up, looking my devil in the eye. I started walking.

"Stop walking!" he ordered.

"Illusive Man..." I started to say something.

"Don't say that name!" his hard expression had warped into one of pure madness. He now hung onto his Phalanx like it was his lifeline, white knuckles curling around the grip and bony fingers millimeters away from pulling the trigger.

"MY NAME IS JACK HARPER! And I will save more lives than you ever did!" His madness had reached its climax, his bright blue eyes now glowed a deep red before me.

Just then, Ashley grabbed her pistol off of her belt and brought it to bear from her prone position on the floor.

He couldn't believe it. The woman he had just killed was about to return the favor.

When he hesitated, we raised our Predators, seeing the Illusive Man's ghostly figure in our crosshairs for the first and last time.

Both guns sounded in the same instant.

Two jets of red exploded from the Illusive Man's chest, tearing through his suit and the flesh and organs below.

He fell to the ground, a dead man.

Jack Harper was finally gone.

Immediately, I ran over to Ash and helped her to her feet.

"Are you okay? Where did it hit you?" I asked frantically, realizing that her recovery might not be perminant.

"I'm okay, John. I think it deflected off of the Mantis across my back," she spoke sluggishly, jarred from being hit point blank by the most powerful sidearm in existance.

"Don't scare me like that, Ash. I thought I lost you there."

"Don't worry about me. I'm not going anywhere," she smiled sweetly for me, her eyes glowing with the passion that I had fallen in love with.

Then we kissed. Deeply.

I had never enjoyed anything more in my entire life, and I think I'm speaking for both of us.

We would be together until the very end, no matter how tragic or devastating it may be.

When we finally parted, Liara and Dignam had found their way to the room, looking exhausted.

Liara's labcoat and boots were charred with energy burns and Dignam's outfit was torn in several places, his shoulder holster hanging onto his left arm by a thread. But they were both smiling.

We were all smiling now.

Liara returned to her base as the new Shadow Broker, confident in her ability to provide us with key information in the war ahead. Ash even told her that she was sorry for all of the grief she caused Liara all those years ago.

I don't even think Liara remembered.

Dignam returned to Elysium right at sundown, fulfilling his promise to "drive off into the sunset." He told us that he would get the SIU ready for the upcoming struggle, whether they liked it or not. He also told us that we could call him Max if we ever saw each other again.

Ashley and I returned to the Normandy to resume the good fight, to continue the race against time to prepare for the Reapers.

We would hold onto each other forever, no matter what happened.


End file.
